How to Use Minimalism in WordPress Web Design

WordPress powers more than 38% of the websites on the Internet. This means that most of the personal blogs, magazines, newspapers, or company presentation websites are built upon WordPress CMS. They use different web designs, some of them, according to the current design trends. One of the stronger and continually growing trends is minimalism in WordPress design. We will take a deep dive into what minimalism is really about and how to use this powerful trend on your WordPress website.

Minimalism is a Modern WordPress Design Approach

Minimalism has influenced the majority of web designs. With art combined with human-computer interaction, minimalism web design has its roots in the early 2000s. However, on the Tate website, minimalism is described as “an extreme form of abstract art developed in the USA in the 1960s and typified by artworks composed of simple geometric shapes based on the square and the rectangle.” Aesthetically, the minimalist design keeps your website’s elements simple, ordered, and in harmony. Functions like transitions, overall composition, navigation, and more can also be seen in popular portfolio WordPress themes or minimal WordPress themes.

A clean WordPress design that allows you to do more with less on your site will definitely ensure a high level of usability. Based on well-balanced elements favoring simplicity, minimalism is one of the modern web design approaches. With a modular system, every element can be moved around and still look great and simple. According to Usability Geek, “simplicity is, ironically, a little more complex to define in the context of web design. It’s not just about the way a site looks; it’s about the user’s overall experience interacting with the site.” Having this type of design on your WordPress website, makes it so your messages and indications will easily guide users.

Best Practices for a Minimalist WordPress Design

With a WordPress theme and a flexible page builder, you can easily create a responsive, unique, and minimalist website. Focus on what your business is all about and identify the elements that characterize it. This will ensure your site is one-of-a-kind, based on your requirements. Below, we’ve made a list of the best practices you can apply to your WordPress website in terms of minimalism design:

1. Negative Space

Use plenty of negative space between elements to guide the readers’ experience towards your product/subject of interest. Furthermore, empty space means design balance, inviting the audience to stay longer on your site. If you are already using a page builder, this is easily managed by adding margins or paddings to builder elements, or by using a spacing module (even Gutenberg includes a simple Spacer option).

2. Hidden Navigation/Hamburger Menu

By using one of these two menu types, you’re ensuring a great UX on your site. This can impact how your site ranks in SERP and even how many of your visitors will actually become customers. Focus on creating menu items for your topics instead of content format. Many of the top WordPress themes include an off canvas or overlay menu style that you can use to achieve this effect.

3. Consistent Coloring

“in most minimalist interfaces, color is used strategically to create visual interest or direct attention without adding any additional design elements or actual graphics.” Minimalism in WordPress websites is mostly shown by monochromatic, grayscale, or by two accent shades. You can pick up the right combination for your website by studying color palettes. Even basic themes often offer built-in color pickers via the Live Theme customizer that you can use to at least add an accent color. But of course page builders will offer your better control over the color scheme of your site, just be sure to use a consistent color palette for your modules.

4. Clear Font Usage

An article on Medium tells us about how the “efficient use of typography can compensate for sparse usage of imagery and animations, making your website visually attractive. Fonts create hierarchy, telling your visitors what’s important and helping them navigate the pages.” You just have to find the right balance between fonts’ weight, height, and contrasting colors to make the overall page appealing and easy to read. Themes typically offer a font selection, however it’s easy to load custom fonts either manually (using a bit of code) or with a plugin. Just be sure to keep the number of custom fonts to a minimum (this is a guide to minimalism after all). In most cases a body font and a heading font are plenty.

Read full article here: https://www.wpexplorer.com/minimalism-wordpress-design