Does Web Minimalism Still Exist?

Recently, while exploring a number of web design trends and discussions, I found myself exploring the intricacies of web minimalism. On researching the topic further, it got me wondering, where is the line drawn between flat design and minimalist design? When is a design considered to be flat or minimalist? And does minimalism as a design them still even exist?

Over the past few years, the web design community has been utterly infatuated with (you know what I’m about to say) flat design. It’s a fixation that’s received a lot of attention and rightly so. However we shouldn’t forget the fundamental principles that good design is based on.

What is Minimalism?

Minimalism as a term covers a pretty broad range of professions, from architecture and manufacturing, to furniture and music. However, in general, no matter the subject, the principles and concepts of minimalism remain mostly similar.
A lot of explanations focus on stripping a design to its bare essentials; however in actuality, although this is true, it goes a lot further.
In web design, minimalism is an approach in which ornamentation, functionality and content are merged together into a single entity, with the design being the result of these three considerations, producing visual and aesthetic simplicity.
To the untrained eye, this may seem like “the bare essentials”, however it is actually more. It is careful, precise, high quality design where attention to detail is paramount. To quote Jonathan Ive:

It’s so much more than just the absence of clutter and ornamentation, it’s about bringing order to complexity.
- Jonathan Ive

Flat Design Is Minimal

However when one looks at minimalism in web design, it is part of what flat design is renowned for. Flat design itself is a minimalist design theme.
One of the first mass-popularised examples and arguably the origin of flat design, Windows Phone 7, was a minimalist approach to UI. Since then, flat design has continually evolved in web design into what it is considered to be today, which is a design theme.
This is how I define flat design:

Flat Design is somewhat difficult to define as it doesn’t really refer to one single concept or practice. Instead it can be thought of as number of concepts and practices that together, makeup a design theme.

So minimalism, together with a number of other core concepts, are what makes flat design what it is. Meaning for the most part, a design cannot flat without being minimal to some extent.
Featured: A New Design Trend: Flat Design Gets Layered

Pure Web Minimalism

Pure web minimalism does still exist, however the lines between minimal and flat design are blurred, now more than ever. Furthermore, because of the distinctly bright color palettes used in flat design, it’s difficult for a design to be considered exclusively minimal without being black and white or shades of gray.
Nonetheless minimal design can still be colored without being considered flat. Take a look at the third example below. It is exactly what I would consider to be minimal design without even a hint of flat design anywhere.

Conclusion

In summary, with the direction web design is heading at the moment, pure minimalism is a difficult design to achieve, with the popularization and ambiguity of flat design. Because flat design encompasses such a large part of web and UI design, including minimalism, a pure minimal design is something more difficult to achieve.
General minimalism in web design seems like it’s being consumed, as the web moves towards a cleaner, simplified, less cluttered and flatter age.
Nonetheless minimal design is still popular today, even with the craze of flat design. And as we saw in some of the examples, minimal design can be achieved without any relevancy to flat design. Personally, I find this warmly reassuring, that the web in-fact doesn’t look “all the same”.

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I’m really interested in hearing different opinions on this through some healthy discussion. What’s your take on minimalism in flat design? Has pure web minimalism been forgotten in the wake of flat UI? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.