I Love Minimalist Layouts
Il semble que la perfection soit atteinte non quand il n’y a plus rien à ajouter, mais quand il n’y a plus rien à retrancher.
~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Terre des hommes, 1939
For those of you that do not speak French, this means: “It seems that perfection is attained not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to subtract.”
I find myself agreeing more and more with this statement in terms of design. I find many designs to be overly flashy and distracting, and that I prefer a good minimalistic layout. Of course, there is always a point at which I draw the line.
I still love good typography; if I ever come across a website in Comic Sans MS, have no doubt that I will never visit that website again. However, if I were to ever come across a site that had perfectly readable and professional-looking text, I would not really care about how plain it looks.
One site that I read often, Perishable Press, had a theme that was, from a design standpoint, breathtaking. He called this Quintessential. However, his new theme, Requiem, is an almost polar opposite compared to Quintessential in terms of design. Yet, Requiem, in my opinion, still manages to be very aesthetically pleasing.
I think that it is time for a redesign for this site, and that a minimalist theme may be in order.
By the way, Lateral Code recently underwent a redesign. The new theme looks great.
Wow, you have a pretty nice layout yourself. And I agree, Quintessential is gorgeous. I lol at Comic Sans MS; Red White and Blue Award invitation fiasco, much?
Is my website's theme too cluttery?
I believe your English version of the quote is not the conventional one. I believe it goes "but when there is nothing more to take away"
The full conventional translation is
"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
I'm very familiar with it given that it plays whenever you research Engineering in CIV ;-)
I would say at least 99.5%. Of all the hundreds or even thousands of people I personally know I'm sure only 20 or so have ever even heard of "how to access the database in that way." Obviously for you who flock with birds of your feather the percentage of people with that knowledge would be high, but you are not normal.
For perfection is attained is not a easy way