Title: What Is Minimalist Design?
Headings: What Is Minimalist Design?
What Is Minimalist Design?
Brief History of Minimalist Design
Key Characteristics of Minimalist Design
Famous Quotes About Minimalist Design

Content: What Is Minimalist Design? Home Decor Interior Decorating Design Ideas by Style
What Is Minimalist Design? Written by
Kristin Hohenadel
Kristin Hohenadel has covered architecture, interiors and decor for publications including the New York Times, Interior Design, Lonny and the international editions of Elle Decor. Learn about The Spruce's Editorial Process
Kristin Hohenadel
Updated 08/04/20
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The Spruce / Michelle Becker
Minimalism has become a modern lifestyle buzzword with its own media gurus who promise that decluttering our homes and simplifying our lives will help us cope with an overwhelming world. Minimalist design, on the other hand, is an influential visual style with an established history in the realms of architecture, interiors, art, graphics, fashion, and virtually every other facet of design. Minimalist design is about prioritizing the essential. A minimalist building, object, or interior design is stripped to its core function, realized using limited materials, neutral colors, simple forms, and avoiding excess ornamentation to achieve a pure form of elegance. While the final expression of a minimalist design might appear effortlessly simple, as spare as a poem and as clear as a bell, achieving this kind of powerful simplicity is anything but easy. Minimalist design has continued to grow in popularity throughout the last century, but for every fan there is a maximalist critic who dismisses it as boring or sterile, lacking in imagination and heart. While minimalist architecture and product design can sometimes be cost-effective, eco-friendly, and may ultimately contribute to the democratization and accessibility of good design, it has also become synonymous with a rarified quest for the perfect object, a luxury that only the privileged few can afford and that can lead to its own form of perpetual excess.