Keep It Simple, Stupid!
Let’s put it straight – simplicity is more complex than you probably think it is. To design a web-site in user-friendly tones, presenting all information and removing unnecessary details isn’t easy. In fact, many designers don’t manage to find the right mix between details and their presentation on the screen, which usually results in an information overkill and/or decreased usability. However, some designers do manage to find the right balance and create usable, elegant and clean web-sites with simple layouts.
We’ve selected some of them. 49 simple, clean, sometimes even minimalistic designs, which all stick closely to one single principle – Keep It Simple, Stupid!. You can also download the whole KISS-gallery in PDF (7,2 Mb) – the document includes high-resolution screenshots and the list of all showcased web-sites. Please do not copy the list, but refer to it with a link.
Update: We’ve been buried as inaccurate/spam on Digg.com. If you don’t think that this post is inaccuarate and you don’t see any spam here, keep digging us and let us know your opinion in the comments.
Recently we’ve suggested few start points one could start learning simplicity from. If you are looking for inspiration, you’d probably like to check
- White Space and Simplicity in An Overview
- 50 Beautiful Web Designs in 2006
- 45 Fresh Designs
- 30 Dark Designs
we’ve selected recently.
Centered Designs
1. Davidville
2. The place Garrett Dimon calls home. | GarrettDimon.com
3. Drew Warkentin | Creative Solutions Daily.
4. Goplan – Online project management and collaboration tool
5. Business Logs: Blog Design, Blog Consulting, Web 2.0 Services.
6. 31Three – Web Development in Niagara, Ontario
7. 45royale, Inc. | Atlanta Web Design and Development
9. Web Design – Normanton, Wakefield, West Yorkshire – Grove
10. Jewelboxing – Super Jewel Box Packaging System – CD and DVD Cases
11. Studio MIKMIK: Graphic design and illustration by Michael Lewis
13. [Beta] Rapid coding collaboration: Springloops
![Keep It Simple, Stupid - Simple Usable Designs - [Beta] Rapid coding collaboration: Springloops](http://media.smashingmagazine.com/images/simple-designs/kiss-52.gif)
14. Corking Design | Daniel Cork freelance web designer based in Manchester
15. Tijs Vrolix
16. Visit MIX07
18. The Book Magazine – read online book reviews, author interviews
19. kottke.org :: home of fine hypertext products
20. Simple software to help you get organized: 37signals
21. t:m
22. The Missing Link – Homepage
23. Wishlistr: Skapa din egen onskelista
24. IconShoppe ~ Royalty-free stock icons for the web
25. Solution Watch – Your descriptive source of solutions
Left-aligned Designs
26. Navix Europe | Language, Creative & Consultancy Services
27. maybe.for.you.
28. Good Creative – Branding and Graphic Identity
29. Text Link Ads – Smart Link Marketing
30. Webdesign Werbeagentur Kassel Vitamin J Kommunikation
31. Subtraction 7.0
Vibrant and Dark Designs
32. We Create Things
33. Lighthouse
34. Centrigy™
35. nclud™ a creative web design agency
37. Revision3
38. The Consult – Creative Design Agency – Home
A Little Bit More Noisy, but Still Simple and Clean Designs
39. Webreakstuff
40. @media 2007 | The Cutting Edge Conference for Web Professionals
41. only a blog
Worth Mentioning
42. An Experiment Gone Useful – Artypapers
43. kartooner.com
44. Unspace
45. Wishingline Design Studios | Services – Services Summary
46. SXSW’07: After the Storm – Snook.ca
47. Design Observer: writings about design & culture
48. paulbeelen.com
49. Olof Lonnroth Design – Lonnroth.info
maksik
March 26th, 2007 9:11 pmCool!!!
Eddie Sowden
March 26th, 2007 9:28 pmSome nice sites. Its interesting to see how many use only a single column for their main content and how many who have lots of columns.
Just out of interest how do you go about finding the sites that you use for your lists? Are they just sites that you happen to know of already or do you go to gallery sites looking for good designs?
Vitaly Friedman
March 26th, 2007 9:44 pm2Eddie: thanks. First of all, we list at least 15-20 sites we know and seen earlier. Afterwards we search through 10-15 CSS-galleries and select some of the most beautiful examples we find.
Quakeulf
March 26th, 2007 10:08 pmI really like these articles. They are so inspirational, but they make me feel like ass in comparison. :p
James Broad
March 26th, 2007 10:11 pmFab resource!
Carlos Eduardo
March 26th, 2007 10:34 pmI like simplicity!
So many designers that I know, doesn’t like simple layouts, because they think it’s boring and ugly…
Sometimes it’s harder than create complex layouts… You need to know where and when white space is the better choice.
add
March 26th, 2007 11:30 pmguys at digitalweb don’t have a feed, 2007? sooo lame
Andrew
March 27th, 2007 1:22 amGreat list. I am in a continuous process of revisions in an aim to find the perfect simplicity. I am not there yet but this should help a lot.
Bill B
March 27th, 2007 5:24 amI love clean design. As a multimedia/graphic designer I have been inclined to learn Flash in the past few years. Taking a look at where the web is going, ie Web 2.0 I feel flash based websites are going to be ancient history except for certain exceptions. Anyone else feel the same way? Let me know.
John Mason
March 27th, 2007 5:50 amI really like the PDF file version for this post. I printed it out and put it in page protectors in a binder. I find that I can flip through the binder and look as designs and get ideas faster than surfing lots of sites. I also put my own comments on the printouts. Can you make PDFs of the other posts that you have done on website design? The 4 you have listed below the introduction text would be great. Your site is great, keep up the good work.
Aaron
March 27th, 2007 12:01 pmAwesome list – one more for keeping it simple: http://www.seventhvision.com.au
Joe
March 27th, 2007 1:26 pmMay be u can also make a list of complicated web site, that u should not follow. :D
Lee Rickler
March 26th, 2007 10:12 pmA lot of my personal sites follow the KISS rule and mainly revolve around 1 master area.
It’s the cleanest, easiest way to design.
David G. Paul
March 27th, 2007 2:33 pmthere’s some damn nice sites there, maybe one day I’ll actually manage to make a site as nice
george
March 27th, 2007 3:17 pmalso worth mentioning would be bloobseven.net
Bloghash
March 27th, 2007 3:04 amVery true! It’s more tough that one could imagine to make something very simple and yet come up with an excellent design. Your article has some nice looking website and inspires me to follow their approach.
Thank you for the list!
BadSlacks
March 27th, 2007 5:29 amAgreed – simple is better. I’ve tried to balance an inviting design and the presentation of content on my blog using the concept of “keeping it as simple as possible.”
helmut
March 27th, 2007 9:46 pmi’ve seen couple of the designs presented here also at open source design sites – i guess here are the original ones (the designers who created layouts for open source..).
Ryan Merket
March 27th, 2007 8:53 amI like my firms site (very simple) pendergraphics
quard
March 28th, 2007 3:52 amThanks for this great list!
Pomster
March 28th, 2007 4:39 pmAs always, I love your lists and this one is superb. Insired!
Seth
March 29th, 2007 2:37 amwow the famous “KISS” in web design, it interests to me.
greetings!
Custom Web Site Design
March 29th, 2007 6:26 pmSome people are saying that simple design is boring… well simple design can be boring… but I also think simple design is the key if you want a website that works for your business… a very often a complicated design can work against your business… just my opinion :)
Mizan
April 4th, 2007 10:39 pmWow, i could certainly use these techniques of web 2.0 in my web designing. Nice article
rohit prasad
April 11th, 2007 1:36 pmPlease add my site also in sutable category
Laurens
April 26th, 2007 5:33 pmAwesome!
Pablo Rosales
May 6th, 2007 10:22 amGreat, i love minimalistic designs, can’t help it
carlo isles
May 7th, 2007 3:26 pmEverything is so simple. I love it. :)
Ma-co Brown
May 7th, 2007 4:18 pmExcellent Usability and Fantastic User Interface.
Richard
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Alin
May 18th, 2007 2:48 pmhave gone through your site its good and excellent, and i found many interesting things to read,gathered information.
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ArcticSoft
May 22nd, 2007 3:23 amI like most of them. I do not like Apples site. It appears simple but after using it, it is pretty terrible. Most of the time you dont know what section you are under as each tab is a whole different site in itself. But the idea is great. I like simple Website Design
Steve Jobs
May 22nd, 2007 4:20 amIf anyone has ever used Apple’s “iWork” application, many of these layouts look rather familiar. Most could have been designed in iWork, just by using the templates for the basic layout.
Jennifer Farley
May 22nd, 2007 7:54 pmMore Inspiration! Thanks. Just found this after looking at your new list. The only problem with these lovely designs is that it makes me want to go and re-design mine all the time.
Kev
May 23rd, 2007 5:47 amThanks for the include! Can’t believe I’m on a list with some of these designers!
Photographer
June 25th, 2007 5:08 amOutstanding post. These are all excellent designs. Certainly a good mixture of text and graphics. I am certainly learning a lot from these designs, and as we like to say imitation is a sincerest form of flattery.
Keral Patel
July 17th, 2007 12:44 pmQuite a collection here. I have also wanted to make good CSS designs but I am just moving to it.
Nathan Chapman
September 17th, 2007 5:11 pmGood Article, but:
Would this make my site too complicated?
I’m not trying to spam, I just have made it recently and have no idea.
Thanks anyways, Nathan
Roy
September 21st, 2007 5:39 pmGreat designs!
One of my favourite http://www.abacusdatasys.com
Arjun
September 30th, 2007 2:03 amassume collection……. but ll try to do better than u…. its challenge!!!!!!!!!!!1
mauc
November 7th, 2007 5:31 pmsimple is cool. and your list is quite inspiring!
Ian Yang
November 21st, 2007 10:04 amWhen I do need a BIG changeover for my website, this is the place I definitely will come for inspiration! Excellent picks!! :P
Jeff Adams
January 5th, 2008 2:08 pmoooh some lovely wee designs in here, i like the darker ones they seem more elegant somehow. When I need a revamp or design inspiration, these are the types of blogs i like to check out thanks smashing magazine!!
ase
January 9th, 2008 6:14 pmwhere is darinfireball.net ?
Peter
January 11th, 2008 12:54 pmHey, fantastic list of sites. So simple and elegant :)
Reed
January 11th, 2008 1:12 pmSo simple means white and boring?
Martin Olsson
January 14th, 2008 12:47 pmBare-knuckle simplicity – gone too far? smpl.se
a friend
January 14th, 2008 2:28 pmthe link to the email advertising site might have triggered your burial on digg
greywulf
January 22nd, 2008 12:36 pmYou know, for a post about KISS web design, this site looks a LOT better once I blocked all the &^&%&ing advertising!!
Maybe it would be a good idea to learn your own lessons, perhaps :)
Bjarni Wark
January 24th, 2008 4:48 pmI am looking at seeing some designs that use 50/50 spacing for layout, I would say something similar to the idea of how a book would display its conent
simon
January 26th, 2008 9:55 amNice article but I disagree a wee bit, simple is good for a lot of sites, yes. take a look at the apple store, its not simple, take a look at any big e-commerce store, ebay, dell the list is endless, most of the sites you show are non-commercial blogs etc, while the web 2 style look works for them, it simply work quite work that way with e-commerce sites, where conversion and design are king.
Nix
March 2nd, 2008 7:43 pmI think that keeping the design clean & simple is the best for your website design.
Man
March 23rd, 2008 10:12 amGreat designs!
James
March 24th, 2008 4:30 amSimple, clean design is an excellent idea for a great looking website.
You dont want anything too fancy otherwise you distract your readers. I love the examples in this post.
Jerzy
April 11th, 2008 10:33 pmI admire 32. website, nice and i am going to use it . thanks!
frengly
Ryan Harris
May 1st, 2008 12:30 pmI absolutely love springloops.com. Another one of my favorites is
YD
June 19th, 2008 1:29 amVery Very Very Very Very…….. Nice
elvrace
September 25th, 2008 10:05 pmJust say http://www.smashingmagazine.com got award from my blog…
so thx smashingmagazine…
Xenstar
September 30th, 2008 8:00 amI wonder if people would consider a site like Avalonstar.com simple. The layout itself is very simple, but it has the illusion of being busy because of the abstract coloring and styling mechanics used in it’s design.
Just as well, I’ve been working on my own site (Xenostar.net) trying to get it to look as simple as possible; I have to say, it isn’t as easy at one would think. Its even harder because I’m designing live.
Sheryar Nizar
May 9th, 2009 4:10 amNice …
JAG
July 27th, 2009 1:02 pmI use articles like this to help me with my designs. It’s very difficult to keep it simple after working on a design for an extended period of time. After viewing sites like the ones posted above, I can tell when to stop adding and start perfecting what I have. Thank You!
Thomas
September 4th, 2009 1:53 pmI like the new designs where a picture or flash movie (700×400 i think) is used, I’ve used this on a few pages, where this photo or movie is toward the top takes up most of the space and links are underneath.
MologokoStudios
April 15th, 2010 7:18 pmWhere is the line between clean and simple going to template looking?…
Amber
December 5th, 2010 4:11 pmHey! This is a beautiful compilation. Check out what the guys at http://www.marketcrashers.com are doing, it fits right in with the clean/simple/minimalist theme. It’s kind of tiring seeing the same old “apple this” and “apple that” all over the place, this is a great mix.
Thanks!
Paxson
February 21st, 2011 8:37 amHere’s another example of a very clean, simple, minimalistic design that is easy to use and navigate. Nothing to subscribe to, no ads, no embellishments, no animation, just pure simple content: http://www.paxsonwoelber.com
siddhi vaidya
July 22nd, 2011 8:25 amit was nice to see the new designs and they where very aatractive and good for drawing and painting