“Make things as simple as possible but no simpler.” (Albert Einstein)

Minimalism is a life philosophy rather than an approach to particular tasks. For many years, the idea of minimalism has been established in many cultures, often mentioned in strong connection with the Japanese culture of Zen Philosophy. Zen concepts of simplicity are based on the freedom and the essence of living. Simplicity in it is far more than just aesthetic value, it dives deeper into the nature of truth and unveils the essence and inner features of materials and objects.

This post is going to give you a glance at how minimalism works in the design of everyday things, combining functionality with beauty and elegance. Meet the new name in D4U Gallery: let us introduce Nendo, the Japanese design company. Founded by Oki Sato in 2002, today the company works globally and is famous for stunning sophisticated designs unveiling the beauty of minimalistic life to the world.

Let’s review some of their product design projects. Enjoy and get inspired!

carton + pump

This fresh project by Nendo for Mitsubishi Corporation Packaging and Nippon Paper Industries touches on the issues of both environmental protection and high care of personal hygiene. They create carton containers similar to milk cartons for foam, liquid soap, and shampoo. Using the same pump, users can replace the entire paper carton, so the new soap or detergent never mixes with the remains as it happens with reusable containers. The carton containers are less harmful to the environment than plastic, and also are convenient to stack for storage and transportation.

my-lid

Another environmentally friendly design was made in this project by Nendo for Lawson. Concerned for the environment, many restaurants step aside from using disposable straws and plastic cups, while the use of paper cups, paper straws, and reusable metal straws is getting more and more popular. That encouraged the reusable coffee cup lid designed for convenience store chain Lawson. The project aims to reduce the disposal of about 1 billion plastic coffee lids, equivalent to 2,000 tons of plastic, provided annually at convenience stores. Its special feature is the partially domed space on the opposite side of the lip. Rising through ventilation holes, coffee’s aroma is briefly captured beneath the shell, allowing a person to enjoy the flavor.

music-link

This project features the mobile accessory collection including earbuds, smartwatches, AI speakers, portable chargers, and wireless chargers designed for mobile device manufacturer OPPO.

&Drip

This project by Nendo is a super-stylish, ultra-minimalistic home-use capsule coffee machine designed for Coca-Cola Japan Company. Each and every detail seems to be thoroughly thought-over to make the machine not only beautiful but also highly functional and easy to use. One of the special features is the option of placing a 500 ml plastic bottle directly on the machine instead of using the water tank, eliminating the need for filling up or cleaning.

cubic clock

This project for The Hour Glass features the unique clock designed in the shape of a slanted cube thanks to a sliced-off vertex that allows the clock to balance on its corner.

More stunning design projects from this team can be found on Nendo’s website

New D4U Gallery issues are coming soon, keep up with the news.

For more inspiration, check the examples of awesome food and tableware photography, realistic 3D portraits, impressive packaging designs, dog illustrations, childhood illustrations, 3D illustrations, book cover designs, and other posts from our D4U Gallery where we gather impressive creatives to share their art with you.

Сообщение Ultra Minimalist and Elegant Product Designs by Nendo появились сначала на Design4Users.

Just to briefly remind, minimalism is a word of broad meaning used in various spheres of human activity. Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as “a style or technique (as in music, literature, or design) that is characterized by extreme spareness and simplicity”. Being applied to more and more fields, it saves its core traits: meaningful and simple. Minimalism as a direction of visual design got especially popular in the 1960s in New York when new and older artists moved toward geometric abstraction in painting and sculpture. The movement found its impression in the artworks associated with Bauhaus, De Stijl, Constructivism, and so on. In diverse spheres of visual arts, a key principle of minimalism was leaving only an essential part of features to focus the recipient’s attention as well as support general elegance. Lines, shapes, dots, colors, spare space, composition – everything should serve its function being thoughtfully organized. Today we can meet minimalism in a variety of life spheres: architecture, arts, photography, all kinds of design, literature, music, and even food presentation. “A shape, a volume, a color, a surface is something itself. It shouldn’t be concealed as part of a fairly different whole. The shapes and materials shouldn’t be altered by their context”, said Donald Judd, an American artist associated with minimalism. Working in this style, designers seek to make the interfaces simple but not empty, stylish but not overloaded. They tend to use negative space, bold color and font combinations, and multifunctional details making the simplicity elegant. The line dividing simple and primitive is very thin. That is why not all the designers take the risk of trying this direction: some may think it looks too decent, the others don’t find enough ways to show much with fewer elements.

So, welcome to get inspired with a fresh D4U collection devoted to elegant and sophisticated minimalism in design for books and editorials.

By Oscar Riera Ojeda Publishers

By Oscar Riera Ojeda Publishers

By Katharina Schwarz

By Katharina Schwarz

By Lucas Blat

By Serafim Mendes

By Julia Kuba

By Lucas Blat

By Tim Bisschop

By Tim Bisschop

By Fons Hickmann m23

By Naranjo — Etxeberria

For more inspiration, check other D4U Inspiration posts, for example:

• Drone Awards photos 2021
• examples of awesome wine packaging designs
• impressive food photography and food styling
• realistic 3D portraits, 
• logo design examples
• captivating 3D animation concepts
• funny 3D characters

Сообщение Less Is More: Elegant and Minimalist Editorial Designs появились сначала на Design4Users.

In the book “The More of Less”, Joshua Becker said: “You don’t need more space. You need less stuff.” Minimalism is often discussed nowadays in different spheres of life and work, and diverse directions of design are not the exception. Let’s see what are its benefits and points to consider.

What is minimalism?

Actually, minimalism is a word of broad meaning used in various spheres of human activity. Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as “a style or technique (as in music, literature, or design) that is characterized by extreme spareness and simplicity”. Being applied to more and more fields, it saves its core traits: meaningful and simple.

Minimalism as a direction of visual design got especially popular in the 1960s in New York when new and older artists moved toward geometric abstraction in painting and sculpture. The movement found its impression in the artworks associated with Bauhaus, De Stijl, Constructivism and so on. In diverse spheres of visual arts, key principle of minimalism was leaving only essential part of features to focus the recipient’s attention as well as support general elegance. Lines, shapes, dots, colors, spare space, composition – everything should serve its function being thoughtfully organized. Today we can meet minimalism in a variety of life spheres: architecture, arts, photography, all kinds of design, literature, music and even food presentation.

“A shape, a volume, a color, a surface is something itself. It shouldn’t be concealed as part of a fairly different whole. The shapes and materials shouldn’t be altered by their context”, said Donald Judd, an American artist associated with minimalism. Working in this style, designers seek to make the interfaces simple but not empty, stylish but not overloaded. They tend to use negative space, bold color and font combinations, and multifunctional details making the simplicity elegant. The line dividing simple and primitive is very thin. That is why not all the designers take the risk of trying this direction: some may think it looks too decent, the others don’t find enough ways to show much with fewer elements.

Architecture Blog

Characteristics of minimalism

Main features of minimalism often mentioned by designers include:

• Simplicity
• Clarity
• Expressive visual hierarchy
• High attention to proportions and composition
• Functionality of every element
• Big amount of spare space
• High attention ratio to core details
• Typography as a significant design element
• Eliminating non-functional decorative elements

Surely, the list can be continued but even the given positions show that minimalism in UI sounds like user-friendly trend. Applied wisely, it helps users to see the core elements of the interface and makes user journey intuitive and purposeful. Moreover, minimalist interfaces usually look sophisticated and uncluttered bringing aesthetic satisfaction as one of the factors of desirability in UX.

Dance Academy landing page

Practices of minimalism in digital design

Today minimalism is one of the wide-spread trends in the design of websites and mobile applications. Main points to consider can be described in the following practices.

Flat design

As we mentioned in one of our previous articles, flat design became a great supporter of minimalism in modern digital products. The most prominent feature of this direction is applying flat 2-dimensional visual details as the opposite of highly realistic and detailed skeuomorphic images. Flat images usually use fewer elements and curves, avoid highlights, shadows, gradients, or textures. This approach allows creating images, buttons, icons, and illustrations which look neat in different resolutions and sizes. It lets designers enhance usability and visual harmony of user interfaces.

However, the terms “flat” and “minimalist” shouldn’t replace each other which often happens today. They are not the same. “Flat” deals with the style of icons, illustration, buttons, and other visual elements of the interface in the aspect of gradients, textures, shadows, etc. “Minimalist” has a much broader meaning and deals with the layout in general, its composition, color palette, contrast and all the techniques of visual performance applied to it. So, flat can be described as one of the design techniques applied in the minimalist approach to creating interfaces.

Cafe Coupon App

Monochrome or limited color palette

Color is a feature of great potential in the design of interfaces as it can set both informative and emotional links between the product and the user. Designers working in minimalism tend to take the maximum from color choices, and in most cases, they limit the color palette to monochrome or minimal set of colors. This strengthens the chosen colors and doesn’t distract users with too much variety. Such an approach is efficient in interfaces concentrating users’ attention on particular actions like buying, subscribing, donating, starting to use, etc. Moreover, from the psychological perspective, the colors usually transfer particular associations and emotions perceived by users, so limited palette makes chosen colors stronger in this aspect.

Slopes Website

Bold and expressive typography

Typography in minimalistic design is seen as one of the core visual elements of not only informing users about the content but also setting the style and enhancing visual performance. Choosing the way of concise use for graphics, designers usually pay much attention to the choice of typography and never hurry in testing the pairs, sizes and combinations. As well as color, fonts and typefaces are seen as a strong graphic element contributing to general elegance and the emotional message it sends. On the other hand, readability and legibility do not lose their leading positions in the matter of choice.

Upper App

Choice limitation

One of the strong sides of minimalism in interfaces is enhanced user concentration. Being focused on functionality and simplicity, the pages and screens of this kind don’t usually overload users attention with decorative elements, shades, colors, details, motion, so in this way, they support high attention ratio and often let users quickly solve their problems and navigate through the website or app.

Birds of Paradise Encyclopedia

Prominent theme visual elements

Working on minimalist UI, designers do not apply many images, but those which are chosen to be used are really prominent, catchy and informative. This approach results in the long and thorough search of the “right” image which would cover all those functions and set the required mood instantly. The photo or illustration itself has to follow the principles of minimalism, otherwise, the choice of the wrong image can ruin all the layout integrity.

Architecture Firm

Concise and intuitive navigation

Navigation in minimalist interfaces presents another challenge: designers have to prioritize the elements rigorously in order to show only the elements of the highest importance. There are different techniques to hide the part of navigation, but doing this, it’s vital to ensure that users will find what they need easily. That is one of the reasons why minimalist approach can be criticized: not being presented properly and tested enough, solutions like hamburger menus and hidden layout elements can leave some users lost in the journey around the website. Obviously, it is not the good ground for positive user experience, therefore every solution about navigation should follow the philosophy “measure thrice and cut once”.

Adding air and using negative space

White space (also called negative) in digital design is the term which is more about space rather than color. In minimalism, it is one more effective way of adding elegance and marking out the core elements. Also, in terms of monochromatic or limited color palette, white or negative space plays a big role in creating enough contrast and supporting legibility.

Ice Website

Grids

Grid system in minimalist interfaces can be effective for making the layout look highly-organized, especially if the website presents a lot of homogenous content. Another benefit is that grids are responsive-friendly.

The Big Landscape

Contrast

Following the philosophy of limits and simplicity, minimalism depends much on contrast as a tool of good visual performance. The choice of colors, shapes and placement are often based on the contrast as the key feature.

Bjorn Website

Well, it’s easy to see that minimalism has a great number of benefits and presents a good approach to creating user-friendly interfaces. However, it doesn’t mean that minimalism should be applied everywhere: every goal should be achieved by the proper means. One thing is for sure: the more minimalistic is the interface, the more time and effort the designer should invest to make it clear and functional. Elegance and beauty of minimalism should support the global aim of providing positive user experience.

Recommended reading

The Characteristics of Minimalism in Web Design

The How and Why of Minimalism

6 Steps to Perfecting Minimalism in Web Design

Functional Minimalism for Web Design

Originally written for Tubik Blog

Сообщение Lean and Mean: Power of Minimalism in UI Design появились сначала на Design4Users.