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56 Light & Clean Website Designs Using A Minimalist Color Scheme

June 26, 2009 by Jon 95 Comments

By now I’m sure you’ve figured out that I love minimalist designs. I’ve featured many simple and minimalist websites on SpyreStudios before but this time I wanted to feature sites that not only have a minimalist layout but that also use very little colors.

I tried to find sites that use a greyscale color scheme but that also introduce a vibrant and/or contrasting color, usually for links and buttons. Most of the sites on this list use at most 3 or 4 colors (black, white, shade of grey, contrasting color) excluding pictures and images that are placed in the content area.

The websites are listed alphabetically. Hope you enjoy it!
*Warning: Lots of whitespace ahead! :)

5 Thirty One ↓

5thirtyone

72 Rivington Street ↓

72rivingtonstreet

39/18 ↓

3918

80/20 Studio ↓

8020studio

Aen Tan ↓

aentan

Andy Rutledge ↓

andyrutledge

Anthony James Bruno ↓

anthonyjamesbruno

Arias ↓

arias

Astheria ↓

astheria

Beyond Standards ↓

beyondstandards

Big Kid ↓

bigkid

Brilliancy ↓

brilliancy

Bryan Culver ↓

bryanculver

Cade Martin ↓

cademartin

Daniel Howells ↓

danielhowells

Daniel Oliver ↓

danieloliver

David Airey ↓

davidairey

The Deck ↓

decknetwork

Eduardo de la Roque ↓

delarocque

Derek Bender ↓

derekbender

Eightface ↓

eightface

Feed A Fever ↓

feedafever

Fell Swoop ↓

fellswoop

FRKT ↓

forrykt

Header Footer ↓

headerfooter

Hello Stefan ↓

hellostefan

Jamie Gregory ↓

jamiegregory

Joni Korpi ↓

jonikorpi

Jon Tangerine ↓

jontangerine

LindenTibbets ↓

lindentibbets

Made By On ↓

madebyon

Make Tea ↓

maketea

Martin Hipp ↓

martinhipp

Max Voltar ↓

maxvoltar

Middle Mind Project ↓

middlemindproject

Minimal Sites ↓

minimalsites

NUYU ↓

nuyustore

Offset Media ↓

offsetmedia

Oh Deer ↓

ohdeer

Olex ↓

olex

Peter Rozek ↓

peter-rozek

Pixel Bot ↓

pixelbot

Rikcat Industries ↓

rikcatindustries

Rodrigo Galindez ↓

rodrigogalindez

Shaun Inman ↓

shauninman

Site Inspire ↓

siteinspire

Stefan Persson ↓

stefan-persson

Strange Beautiful ↓

strangebeautiful

Subtraction ↓

subtraction

Superrevolver ↓

superrevolver

Thirty One West ↓

thirtyonewest

Voce Antica ↓

voceantica

Welcome To HR ↓

welcometohr

Year Of The Sheep ↓

yearofthesheep

Yoo Tae Han ↓

yootaehan

Z8 ↓

z8

Your Turn To Talk

I hope you enjoyed this post! Please share your favorites with the rest of us – I love to read what other people like about minimalist designs and layouts. And what do you think of monochrome designs? Love ’em? Hate ’em?

Testking offers 100% pass guarantee for your EX0-101 exam. Get PMI-001 and 70-291 real questions for practice and pass your cert exam on first dive guaranteed.

Author: Jon

http://www.24alta.ru
Online roulette Canada.

Filed Under: Inspirational, Minimalism, Showcase

Comments

  1. Jim Gaudet says

    June 26, 2009 at 3:38 pm

    For me, I really like the minimalistic themes…

  2. greg says

    June 26, 2009 at 4:06 pm

    Fantastic collection of sites. I’m preparing to do a redesign of my own site and so many of these are so inspirational.

  3. Christine (Artemis Clover Photo) says

    June 26, 2009 at 4:14 pm

    i love! i am in the process of redesigning my website and simplicity and clean lines are exactly what i am looking for!

  4. Reinhold Weber says

    June 26, 2009 at 4:44 pm

    May I humbly suggest my own site which I just redesigned with a minimalistic approach 3 days ago. http://reinholdweber.com

  5. HM says

    June 26, 2009 at 6:41 pm

    Nice list. Here goes another example: http://www.sparkmm.com

  6. Camille says

    June 26, 2009 at 9:32 pm

    Excellent list – as always! Minimalist design is quite often more difficult to achieve and each of these sites accomplish the feat very well. Thanks for the inspiration! As an aside, let me also comment on Spyre’s new look…It has been awhile since I’ve visited and I like it very much!

  7. Daniel Howells says

    June 26, 2009 at 9:43 pm

    I’m genuinely flattered to have three of my websites featured here (72 Rivington Street, my own blog, and siteInspire). Thanks so much!

    And also appreciate David Arias, Minimalsites, FRKT, and Human Resources… huge fan of all.

  8. Benoy says

    June 26, 2009 at 10:14 pm

    I really liked the list and the simplicity of colors and designs. Thanks for the share.

  9. JAmes Watts says

    June 26, 2009 at 10:35 pm

    Wow, totally amazing! Clean is good!

    R
    Twww.anon-tools.tk

  10. Sticktacular says

    June 26, 2009 at 10:48 pm

    Nice list, here’s another one – http://zachkrasner.com/

  11. Josh says

    June 26, 2009 at 11:15 pm

    Nice clean designs indeed. Dugg for “Z8”

  12. Andrew says

    June 26, 2009 at 11:49 pm

    Nice collection. I couldn’t help but notice the similarity between “made by on” and “on wired”, what do you think?

    http://www.madebyon.com
    ================
    Logo: http://img.skitch.com/20090627-tk5n7r2em6d34nuc676cfj7821.png
    Shortcut: http://img.skitch.com/20090627-g2thqc7gqtbxd7ij2q7hkr4dni.png

    http://www.onwired.com
    ================
    Logo:http://img.skitch.com/20090627-xxhaqnufwai5sn2mjrrg48uygi.png
    Shortcut: http://img.skitch.com/20090627-e6dmi5mc54wq69rw2byt36557p.png

  13. Anthony James Bruno says

    June 27, 2009 at 1:30 am

    Glad everyone is digging my site!

    Cheers,
    AJB

  14. Daus says

    June 27, 2009 at 1:52 am

    Great list. Mine is also using minimalistic apporach: http://daus.trala.la/ :)

  15. Stefan Coisson says

    June 27, 2009 at 2:51 am

    Thanks for the linking my site! I’m very flattered to be in this list of amazing websites by some amazing developers!

  16. Peter says

    June 27, 2009 at 3:31 am

    Nice list. Here goes another example: http://frischerlook.de

  17. Mariusz says

    June 27, 2009 at 4:32 am

    Check mine – http://mariuszciesla.com

  18. Gina Lucy says

    June 27, 2009 at 4:40 am

    Purely inspiring!

  19. don says

    June 27, 2009 at 4:50 am

    more than enough there to inspire me for my next design

  20. Meg says

    June 27, 2009 at 5:43 am

    Indeed great list.
    I recommend this uber minimal design

    http://catnipcreative.com

  21. Aen says

    June 27, 2009 at 7:14 am

    Woot I appeared twice in this post. First as the fifth entry in the list and then as a screenshot within Minimalsites. RT, Dugg and thanks!

  22. Johannes says

    June 27, 2009 at 7:17 am

    I’m flattered that FRKT is associated with these. Thank you.

  23. raphael w says

    June 27, 2009 at 7:18 am

    yep, really nice selection!

  24. Stuart Hobday (39/18) says

    June 27, 2009 at 8:16 am

    Hi

    Great list and thank you so much for the inclusion (3918.co.uk).
    Means a lot

    Stuart

  25. Adam says

    June 27, 2009 at 8:28 am

    Here is another one: http://hotmeteor.com/

  26. Aneslin says

    June 27, 2009 at 10:36 am

    wow. thx for this collection.
    I like typography. but dont like to use it :)

  27. Jim Gaudet says

    June 27, 2009 at 11:46 am

    BTW, I love the hover effect on the comment images.. I may “borrow” that idea, a little different of course :)

  28. Tripp says

    June 27, 2009 at 11:50 am

    another one thats super minimal http://www.marthakelly.com

  29. Jim Cook says

    June 27, 2009 at 12:57 pm

    Such beauty in simplicity, but so hard to sell to clients. “It looks so plain,” is what I hear a lot.

  30. jlbraaten says

    June 27, 2009 at 2:05 pm

    Your ability to organize and present information is amazing. I would invest in a search engine that could produce results like yours. Another great post.

  31. Tyrone says

    June 27, 2009 at 3:04 pm

    Minimalism is one of the greatest design success stories. Thank you for sharing these light and clean designs.

  32. LindenTibbets says

    June 27, 2009 at 8:26 pm

    Sweet list! Thanks for the mention. Was actually just in the middle of making a small design/usability tweak this morning. Changed all sidebar links blue, not just on hover.

  33. Mahallo Media says

    June 28, 2009 at 2:39 am

    Great collection, thanks a lot :)

  34. David Airey says

    June 28, 2009 at 6:49 am

    Quite the popular post here, Jon. Thanks a lot of the mention alongside lots of inspiring designs. Makes me want to show a little more black in mine, and less gray.

  35. Sven says

    June 28, 2009 at 9:16 am

    Nice list. Here goes another example: http://www.dackworld.de

  36. amodgrl says

    June 28, 2009 at 12:02 pm

    One of my current favorites for a local gallery/studio.

  37. Jon Phillips says

    June 28, 2009 at 1:30 pm

    @All: thanks a lot everyone, I’m happy you liked the post! :)

    @Camille: Thanks! I really appreciate it. For some reason I keep changing the design, guess I can do stuff here that I can’t when I work for clients hehe

    @Andrew: humm, good catch! Yes, I agree, they do look very similar, though it’s a good thing both websites look completely different I guess.

    @Daniel Howells, Anthony James Bruno, Aen, Johannes, Stuart Hobday: You’re all very welcome!

    @LindenTibbets: You’re welcome! I have to say I do like the blue links better :)

    @Jim Gaudet: Sure thing! :)

    @Jim Cook: You got a good point there. A very minimalist approach won’t work for every type of site, but sometimes it does. It can be minimalist and still get pretty big and successful if you look at sites like emptees.com. Of course when it’s freelance work, it’s not about making it simple and minimalist just because you like that, it’s about what the client wants and needs and what his/her goals are with the site.

    @David Airey: You’re welcome buddy! Hey I like the shades of grey, I think if fits nicely with the orange you have (and as you can see I love orange hehe) :)

  38. Jason Grant says

    June 28, 2009 at 5:44 pm

    One or two examples here I would diss outrightly as a pile of poo, as they seem to break every rule in the book and leave me stranded trying to understand what the page is about.

    Others, considering they have no colour for most part, are in danger of being easily forgotten, hence missing out on important branding values which add so much to many businesses.

    It’s an interesting list of examples nevertheless.

  39. Cre8ive Commando says

    June 28, 2009 at 9:23 pm

    Great post … I’m a fan of minimalist designs … my favourite is the NUYU website!

  40. Stu Collett says

    June 29, 2009 at 4:34 am

    Nice list guys!

  41. Judson says

    June 29, 2009 at 9:25 am

    Please check ackackack.com and weweregood.com

  42. Shibi Kannan says

    June 29, 2009 at 10:57 am

    Very nice collection. I was just looking for some inspiration for minimalistic designs. Great article.

  43. Brant says

    June 29, 2009 at 8:00 pm

    Nice post guys!

  44. Jake says

    June 29, 2009 at 8:01 pm

    I see these collections of minimalistic web designs all over the place, but it’s hard to find an actual GOOD collection of designs. Nice post, thanks for the inspiration!

  45. Raymond Selda says

    June 30, 2009 at 2:57 am

    I love minimalist designs and my favorite is my site! hahaha. Thank you for this collection.

  46. GeoNeo says

    June 30, 2009 at 4:40 am

    Hey Jon,

    Thanks for featuring our website in this great list. We gave you a little shout out on our blog.

    Geo.

  47. Dom says

    June 30, 2009 at 6:37 am

    They’re nice, but all pretty similar. Minimalist doesn’t have to mean unimaginative.

  48. James Robson says

    June 30, 2009 at 11:00 am

    http://www.dannyisonfire.com is a design that I really like.

  49. webmasterdubai says

    July 1, 2009 at 1:16 am

    nice listing good post and collection of website really impressive.

  50. Janaki says

    July 1, 2009 at 11:59 am

    Interesting collection! I appreciate your effort and eye for clean designs. I bookmarked this page and would really love to visit these sites in detail, probably pick up an idea or two:)

    Thanks again for the nice collection.

    Janaki

  51. Honour Chick says

    July 2, 2009 at 12:05 am

    very simple but yet very beautiful. thanks for showcasing this compilation ;)

  52. iEnvironment says

    July 3, 2009 at 8:05 am

    this is such a fantastic post!!! A big thank you Jon for sharing these sites with us. Simple yet so effective…nice!

  53. Design master says

    July 3, 2009 at 6:39 pm

    I like the collection.

    Though most of them are just based on almost standard fonts, some of the templates look really nice..

    I surely have to make a separate section in my websites to post collections like this one.

    I’ve remarked, many are using a black color scheme – if you play a bit with other colors, some examples may be upgraded quite well..

  54. Website Designer Katy, TX says

    July 5, 2009 at 2:50 am

    After seeing this it make you appreciate the simple website designs. Some times simple is the most professional.

  55. ToddKMeadows says

    July 7, 2009 at 12:13 am

    Always interested in what others are doing since I am still in the learning process and tend to run with scissors and draw outside the lines — on purpose!!!!

  56. ChristianB says

    July 8, 2009 at 1:41 am

    Nice collection! I love clean design. Here’s another one: http://hakki.com – I like how he keeps it so focused at the message, as minimalistic as it gets :)

  57. Robert Hines says

    July 10, 2009 at 10:31 am

    Great list. Heres another example:

    http://www.pomade.tv

  58. Chris says

    July 19, 2009 at 1:54 am

    Nice list, here’s another one – http://www.dackworld.de/2009/07/17/30-free-minimalism-wordpress-design-themes/

  59. TalkVietnam says

    July 20, 2009 at 12:11 am

    Great post!

    Simple is the best.

    Thank you for sharing.

  60. glurt says

    July 27, 2009 at 10:30 am

    Thanks ! I like them all !

  61. Graphic Designer says

    August 12, 2009 at 7:49 am

    I seriously love this type of web design, makes my site http://www.design-intellect.co.uk look embarrassing. Have book marked your list and will study the ins and outs of these styles, any advice? Matt.

  62. subcorpus says

    August 28, 2009 at 7:41 pm

    nice collection here …
    thanks for sharing …

  63. David Arias says

    September 17, 2009 at 4:38 am

    Looks like I’m very late in discovering this, but nonetheless I humbly appreciate the inclusion of my website here. Also, thanks to Daniel Howells for the props. I’m a fan of this web development skills myself. Every time I come across other beautifully designed websites ( many of them shown here) it makes me want to re-design my own again. Thanks again. Beautiful collection here.

  64. Ashely Adams says

    September 19, 2009 at 4:46 am

    Wow…..this is something I was looking for. These websites look very clean and professional. Honestly, I was tired to of those bright and colorful designs. I am not saying that they are bad but seeing these sites with minimal color scheme was a treat to my eyes. Thanks.

  65. Geoff says

    September 30, 2009 at 4:40 pm

    New to the site… will be a frequent visitor. Some fantastic examples and insight.

    I would like to get some thoughts on my site: http://www.theedesign.com/

    Thanks guys!

  66. Minimalissimo says

    October 28, 2009 at 3:31 pm

    Guys, also check out Minimalissimo at http://minimalissimo.com. We blog about minimalist design and try to practice what we preach!

  67. chandrashekar says

    November 19, 2009 at 8:11 am

    minimalism can never become outdated, eh? one thing minimalism is, unlike high-end designs, it offers great platform for improvisations and modifications that can still be minimal!!

  68. Mark Sinclair says

    December 4, 2009 at 3:50 pm

    I really like the 80/20 Studios design. That, and Site Inspire. Those are my ideas of what clean, elegant professional websites should look like.

    The Cade Martin one looks really fantastic as well. Perfect for a personal blog, or perhaps a screenprinting service.

  69. lhoylhoy says

    January 3, 2010 at 11:51 pm

    nice collection there buddy! I’m a big fan of minimalism in fact i’m also designing minimalist templates and this list gave me inpirations in most of my designs

  70. Max Hugh says

    January 6, 2010 at 1:16 pm

    Hi, I just left a comment on your article titled: “20-examples-of-dark-minimalist-website-designs-with-great-typography” which I thought was an excellent and inspiring piece. In the comment I said that dark websites are excellent, however because of “glossy” screens on new PCs and Macs, (and glass screens on mobile phones) fingerprints and dust or glare can detract from the overall web experience.

    With white/ light webdesign (even though I really like dark designs), for asthetic appeal they are much better as it reduces glare and screen dust/ fingerprint visability.

    Some good examples in addition to the excellent ones you have shown above are:
    http://www.teNriA.com | http://www.Apple.com | http://www.HugoBoss.com | http://www.CK.com | http://www.Dior.com

    These are some of my favourites and most inspirational as they look really classy.

    Great post–thanks for the inspiration!

  71. Eric Di Bari says

    January 8, 2010 at 5:02 pm

    I got inspiration from these sites to come up with the first revision of my website here at http://www.employeratlas.com – it may be a little to simple though. Any suggestions?

  72. Gino says

    January 16, 2010 at 7:25 pm

    Awesome designs I think I am going to redo my portfolio site using this clean minimalistic style. It never gets old!

  73. Esben says

    January 18, 2010 at 10:11 am

    I will redo my owm website with insiration from these designs.

  74. Erwin Schro says

    January 30, 2010 at 12:41 am

    These inspired me a lot…thanks for the list. It makes me think to collect minimalist design websites that use Joomla CMS as their platform. But it’s a little hard to find the sites with this design approach…

  75. habib says

    February 18, 2010 at 6:51 am

    That stuff will defenatelly help me building my webstie in a better way. Thanks.

  76. Robert says

    February 25, 2010 at 1:31 pm

    I love this simple but beautiful stlye. Thank you for this great collection, some already bookmarked.

  77. Chris Horsnell says

    March 29, 2010 at 4:10 pm

    Usually a big fan of dark designs, but some of these are really nice! Bookmarked!

  78. George Lucas says

    July 1, 2010 at 3:49 am

    Hiya,

    Great post, I think keeping minimalistic and clean is good it has lots of advantages aswell, such as quicker load time and search engines love them as their usually easy to read.

    I think i went over the top here; http://www.randomfactgenerator.net Haha!

    Thanks again!

  79. sath says

    July 13, 2010 at 3:17 am

    Great post on this website…really its very useful for website designers..fine thanku..nice sharing

  80. Tom says

    July 14, 2010 at 2:48 pm

    Nice collection! Here are some more: http://newevolutiondesigns.com/30-outstanding-minimalist-web-designs

  81. Adam says

    August 1, 2010 at 3:44 am

    I tried to also keep it clean and simple by using as little imagery as possible and just letting the content be the design. Check out http://www.reversedout.com and let me know what you guys think and if there is an opportunity for me to improve or even simplify more. Thank you.

  82. Aaron says

    August 29, 2010 at 6:33 am

    Great collection of inspiration! I came up with this very simplistic design for my portfolio. What do you think? http://www.aarontolley.co.uk

  83. Chaya Cooper says

    September 21, 2010 at 11:36 pm

    Amazing round-up of some of the best designs I’ve seen in a while

  84. venkata says

    September 23, 2010 at 12:56 am

    wow! i’ve bookmarked this page mate. each site is interesting and no wonder, i’ve already picked up an idea or two from some of them. I’ll closely watch through them once again..thx a lot

  85. Yuriy Z. says

    September 24, 2010 at 1:34 pm

    Minimalism can be powerful, yet It’s very easy on the eyes. I went for a more minimalist approach on my design portfolio myself- let me know what you think http://www.yuriyz.com.

  86. Irwan says

    September 29, 2010 at 11:11 am

    Very very nice design.. Loves it..

  87. jeff says

    October 4, 2010 at 12:14 pm

    These are beautiful… Simple yet attractive.

  88. egiova says

    October 18, 2010 at 4:06 pm

    Very few pages aren’t trapped by the “grid effect”. Many of these sites are inanimated, or static. I agree about “Minimal use of elements”, but you have to make your page moving anyway. Cade Martin, or PixelBot, or Voce Antica are good examples. Thanks for the showcase, very inspiring.

  89. sawyer says

    January 20, 2011 at 3:26 am

    wow! i’ve bookmarked this page mate. each site is interesting and no wonder, i’ve already picked up an idea or two from some of them. I’ll closely watch through them once again..thx a lot

  90. Dimitri Sokolov says

    February 6, 2011 at 9:33 am

    http://www.subbmitt.com is a very minimalist social news site. I like it better than Digg or Reddit because of its simple clean design. Nicely done.

  91. Joseph Montillo says

    April 12, 2011 at 6:28 pm

    I tried my hand at making a minimalist site:

    http://www.we.bsit.es

  92. akado says

    April 16, 2011 at 4:00 pm

    http://akado.fi/ – my minimalist website

  93. Edward says

    June 22, 2011 at 5:53 am

    My creative work, thanks, http://folioway.iwakthemes.com

  94. Rainleader LLC says

    June 23, 2011 at 7:19 pm

    Great job putting this list together — I love the underlying simplicity of a minimalist design and how it focuses the reader’s attention onto the content itself.

    I’ve written a similar post on Why a Minimalist Website Design is Better, check it out:

    http://rainleader.com/2011/06/less-is-more-why-a-minimalist-website-design-is-better/

  95. Brian Fellows says

    May 7, 2019 at 12:52 am

    It’s interesting to see how minimalist design and basic color schemes can be used in many unique ways. Thanks for the great list of examples.

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