Showing posts with label simple web icons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label simple web icons. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Simple Icons And Minimalistic Website Design

Simple icons are created to join forces of minimalism and modern trend. Light-weight Simple web icons are supposed to be built to improve web-site user interaction.

Minimalism in web site design

Lets find out what minimalistic web site design indicates. Definitely the first characteristics are simplicity and lightweight elements. Simple web icons involve all of this. This type of icons does not have complex wordings, figures, textures and patterns. Less even indicates more in some areas and to some extent. Internet site design is just that area.

Minimalistic design is quite an unexpected trend at present. As far as you know high present day technologies have one great weakness - usually they resulted in the loss of simplicity. Today the contemporary trend is to combine minimalistic web design with CSS3 and HTML5. Website which uses simple design often has off-color effects and also actively use CSS and Ajax.

The most significant features of the modern simple web site design:

  • grid based design;
  • simple icons;
  • light shading and reserved color transition;
  • light texture of patterns and backgrounds (often transparent like);
  • more empty or white space;
  • simple shapes and figures, clear lines;
  • less amount of various bright colors;
  • readable and clear typography;

Simple Web Icons Features

Simple web icons are among the principal features of minimalistic design. Do not forget that simple icons along with other design elements should be used moderately. One of the tips is minimizing icons use in general. Reduce the amount of simple icons. Use them only where it is essential. Optional simple web icons are to be refrained from repetition or eluded. They may serve multiple functions.

Limited amount of color, reserved tones, clear elements, soft lighting are being used for simple web icons design. One of the greatest advantages of Simple web icons is that they don't distract website visitors from the main idea of your site.

Rules for simple icons design:

  • minimal usage of duplication
  • less amount of graphical elements
  • maximum intuitive clarity
  • clear typography in simple web icons
  • less icons

Some important ideas for developing a minimalistic design with simple web icons

Don't forget about lightweight background textures and patterns. They're also important for the design and content perception as well as simple icons. The background pattern or images should not grab all the attention of your visitors. The eyes should focus on the website content or some main blocks. Building the background use a light simple shade. This makes it secondary compared with the foreground items like simple web icons.

Clear typography is another prominent feature of the lightweight and clear design. Pick simple icons names according to their function and remember that such names ought to be precise, and also meaningful. Headings placed on simple web icons need to be of readable font and large enough for easy reading. Clear hierarchy should be followed as well.

Also for creating a great clean simple icons design you can use enough white or empty space. Extra spaces keep elements individual and for that reason more readable and easier to work with. In case you use some extra space between simple web icons this do not harm to the design of your site at all.

Speaking about the minimalistic trend in most cases it's not totally minimal. In spite of its great amount of white space there are still some simple icons, light textures, neat styles and bold fonts. Bear in mind that minimal is not exactly the same as simple. Initially minimal meant plain typographic excluding images and styling. Nowadays there's a great amount of various website pages over the Internet. Thats why modern design demands something more than black text on white background. Add more zest to your web site layout with a help of some unusual coloring, catchy simple icons, half-transparent and lightweight textures and patterns. Also reduce design elements to the most essential items.

Simple is often used like a synonym of smart. Simple web icons look great and professional especially for a clean business style design.