15 Best Simple Website Designs That Prove There Is Beauty in Subtlety

15 Best Simple Website Designs That Prove There Is Beauty in Subtlety
Article by DesignRush DesignRush
Last Updated: April 24, 2023

While some websites shine in loud patterns and jam-packed layouts, some stand out with more straightforward design approaches -- like how these best simple website designs do!

This article features the top-ranked simple website designs that prove beauty can exist in uncomplicated and direct web structures. As the primary web designer credo notes, less is indeed more!

Browse other best website designs here to spark your creative mind!

Agency description goes here
Agency description goes here
Agency description goes here

1. La Gata Perduda by Domestic Data Streamers

[Source: La Gata Perduda]

Standout Features:

  • A real-life cat walking across the screen
  • Relaxing natural sounds
  • An incredible scrolling experience

Designed by Domestic Data Streamers, La Gata Perduda's site is one of the best simple website designs with a cute personality.

Upon entering the site, you can choose whether to have content in Catalonian or English. But as you decide, there’s a pleasant surprise to remind you of the site’s name: a confused real-life cat walking across the screen and stopping to scratch its ear for a second.

Once you say hi and choose the language, you’re thrown into a relaxing journey enhanced by soothing natural sounds that follow you into the scrolling experience.

But the real treat of this design lies in its scrolling experience. The central imagery is “hanging” on a page torn from a calendar (or a notebook page.) It makes sense as it takes you back in time through incredible visual storytelling to tell you everything about The Lost Cat and its astonishing heritage.

2. Delay by Programatorio

[Source: Delay]

Standout Features:

  • Refreshing dynamic elements
  • Taking the phrase “window shopping” literally
  • A fluid color palette

Programatorio’s solution for Delay’s simple website design suits the aesthetics of the brand’s products very well.

From moving pictures and dancing copies to cute illustrations and line animations that transform into a circle embracing buttons, this design combines many dynamic elements that keep the website fresh and entertaining.

Whether you’re roaming the website’s store catalog or learning about the brand’s portfolio, the design brings the phrase “window shopping” to life as product-focused photography is framed in cute windowpanes with a flat base that extends to a rounded arch.

Lastly, the website uses a fluid color palette with a red full-screen background serving as a hallway in each transition to a different page.

3. Luca Sammarco

[Source: Luca Sammarco]

Standout Features:

  • A noise effect in the background
  • Avatar team introduction
  • A customer-centric landing page

Luca Sammarco’s simple web design represents an intriguing blend of modern and evergreen features to deliver an authentic vibe to anyone browsing.

The hero section displays past work experience, providing a classy old newspaper vibe due to the noise effect throughout the layout.

Aside from the swift introduction, the design immediately showcases a triple carousel of past projects, presenting the number of happy customers. But if you’re not convinced, you can find brand testimonials below, encapsulated by gradient cards.

Once you’re acquainted with the work, the design introduces you to Luca and his team through readable content and a friendly avatar to represent each of them.

Despite essentially being a portfolio website, this design lets the landing page focus entirely on the customer. Alongside the friendly and problem-solving tone of the website, the landing page also offers an FAQ section near the bottom.

4. Ana Karic

[Source: Ana Karic]

Standout Features:

  • Color-shifts
  • Heavy typography
  • An engaging, conversational About section

Ana Karic’s simple portfolio website design represents a sophisticated signature that portrays her work style and ethic.

One of the most distinctive features of this design is its fluctuating background color. The background continually changes colors, enriching the visitors' browsing experience.

The design is low in content blocks, mainly communicating through short, straightforward messages expressed through a heavy, black typeface.

By clicking on the menu, you can access a full-screen categorization that helps you navigate the website more easily. If you head over to the About section, you’ll be happy to see that it dissolves the far-too-common short designer-oriented messaging. Instead, it establishes an extensive and linear conversation with you, leading you through the designer's work ethic and giving insights about her past projects.

5. YuFang by GAZE DESIGN

[Source: YuFang]

Standout Features:

  • Stunning oriental cultural visuals
  • A distinctive service catalog representation
  • A clean browsing experience

Another top-notch simple website design is YuFang's, created by GAZE DESIGN. It provides an exquisite journey to the unknown through eye-candy visuals and no-frills interactive elements.

The design leaves visitors in awe through several intricate details, the warm and bright rice paper background, rotating numerology compasses, and overlapping and falling Chinese characters.

Once you’re ready to move on and start scrolling, you’ll gain information on the website owner through a swift About section.

The linear design lets you look at the service catalog through a unique menu representation: Five doors are painted with oriental patterns, each opening wide as you hover over them. Each holds a service name and shows a short description in the center.

The design also lets you read case studies presented on a carousel. The browsing experience is beautiful, clean, and linear, with significant cross-section transitions.

Look at this article to find more clean website designs!

6. Bonpez Additive 3D Printing by Web Heroes

[Source:
Bonpez Additive 3D Printing]

Standout Features:

  • Geometric design elements
  • A product-type carousel
  • A dark theme

Bonpez is a metal wire company that wanted to expand its offer by introducing a 3D printing service. Web Heroes helped the brand by developing a simple yet delicate website design for this new endeavor.

The layout is built upon basic geometry, with thin horizontal lines that separate sections and vertical lines to emphasize the headlines. Browse brand offerings through scaled-up product presentations with nametags that appear once you hover over them.

If you’ve enjoyed browsing this design, you’ll love these dark-themed website designs.

The layout features a classic minimal dark theme contrasted by a brighter light shade of blue used as an indicator for buttons and other hyperlinks.

Get connected with the right web design agency for your project.
GET STARTED

7. Brad Guesman

[Source: Brad Guesman]

Standout Features:

  • Offbeat and funny
  • Offers an extensive thought process
  • A mixture of cursor effects

Brad Guesman’s portfolio website is a visually appealing treat. It's a simple website design that uses humor to communicate the vast array of creative services he offers.

From the get-go, Brad invites you to participate in this playful design by providing a mixture of cursor effects that vary depending on the section you’re visiting. The hero section features a call to action written in black glossy letters that turn copper as you hover over or near them. The cursor movement releases black ink that alters the color and lets you play around with the shapes.

As you get into the scrolling, you get access to a short message from the owner accompanied by his quirky photo that sets a playful yet intriguing atmosphere. Like the text above it, the cursor can move the image around and replace it with another, providing a hologram effect.

This simple website design shows a solid commitment to work. It can best be seen in the Work section that lets you in on Guesman's thought process through detailed journal-like entries related to each project.

Featured Custom Website Designs by Top Digital Agencies
Website designed by Agency
Design description goes here
Website designed by Agency
Design description goes here
Website designed by Agency
Design description goes here

8. Sence Architects by Nice Digital Studio

[Source: Sence Architects]

Standout Features:

  • Minimal and straightforward
  • Great use of positive space
  • Eye-catching headlines

Sence Architects’ simple website design, created by Nice Digital Studio, is a joy to browse through as it’s intuitive and easy to navigate.

This design’s minimalistic appeal lies in its swiftness. Aside from the menu in the header, it jumps straight to the point and opens the door to the many prominent success story galleries that speak about the brand more than words could.

Besides the colorful photography, the design embraces a black-and-white appeal and uses the immense positive space to bring attention to the images or the content blocks.

9. Jorge Hrdina Architects by Made Agency

[Source: Jorge Hrdina Architects]

Standout Features:

  • An immersive showreel
  • Gallery project representation
  • A clean and image-led design

Jorge Hrdina Architects is a team of people with 30 years of success stories in delivering high-quality architectural solutions. And Made Agency ensured that this success is translated to a simple yet persuasive website design.

As visual and empirical artists, these architects let the pictures talk. It starts right from the hero section, inviting you to enjoy a short and immersive showreel that lets you in on the brand’s work style.

As soon as the video ends, you’re met with a gallery of featured projects on a conveyor belt that is clickable and manually browsable. Clicking on a particular project lets you access more related, high-resolution images.

This clean and image-led design is only obstructed by the About section, which further delves into the brand’s work and team members. Otherwise, it’s a purely visual browsing experience.

10. Mattia Cielo by NOOO Agency

[Source: Mattia Cielo]

Standout Features:

  • A two-fold design
  • Product-focused
  • Easily customizable

Mattia Cielo’s simple website design, crafted by NOOO Agency, conveys the brand’s revolutionary approach to selling premium jewelry in excellent style.

Check out this article for more high-end jewelry website designs.

The design is divided into two, each offering distinctive features to represent its vital points.

One, we have the “Concept” section that elaborates on the unique attributes of the jewelry, using eccentric short videos with a model and horizontal typography to indicate its main features.

The other half is an elegant, luxurious online shop exhibiting the featured products. Each picture click leads you to more in-depth product details.

The design is also customizable. You can change the website’s theme, decide whether you want a soothing sound while browsing and edit the properties of each item conveniently.

11. Tualatin River Watershed Navigator by Brave New Day

[Source: Watershed Navigator]

Standout Features:

  • Offers an interactive exploration process
  • 360-degree images
  • An immersive educational experience

The Tualatin River Watershed Navigator’s simple website design by Brave New Day aims to help the people of Oregon’s Tualatin River Watershed area with their everyday lives.

The design initially portrays a topographic map with four clickable bubbles. Each presents a distinctive call to action with a cute image that takes you to a 360-degree image that expands with similar bubbles of information. The high-quality photos inspire the viewer to take a moment to experience the area's fascinating natural riches.

Get ready for an educational journey as you explore other website subsections. You'll see content bits helping you better understand the area and its ecosystem. Check out some of the best website designs for 2024 here.

12. Inceptiv Law by Spotlight Branding

[Source: Inceptiv Law]

Standout Features:

  • An interactive vertical panel
  • Clean design with large font sizes
  • An emphasized testimonial section

Spotlight Branding’s simple website design for Inceptiv Law marks a clean solution with increased legibility.

The homepage features an excellent vertical panel divided into eight symmetrical parts, each representing a letter from the brand name. The narrow black-and-white urban landscape photos turn colorful as you hover over them, giving off a relaxed and experimental vibe.

The rest of the landing page is characterized by flawless use of positive space and a well-distinguishable section division. Apart from listing the brand’s services through a combination of short copies and corporate illustrations, the design highlights the benefits of collaborating with the brand using bullet points in big font sizes that ensure increased readability.

Once you know what you can expect from Inceptiv Law and the team, you’ll reach a testimonial section emphasized with significant blue quotation marks and centered comments between the interpunction signs.

13. FLOCdesign 

[Source: FLOCdesign]

Standout Features:

  • Homepage carousel
  • High-res images
  • Minimalistic design tendencies

FLOCdesign's website is minimalism embodied! It is a perfect example of how sophistication and streamlined simplicity go hand in hand. From pleasant and homey color scheme to high-res photographs and elegant typography each element showcases underlined style, smoothness, and grace. 

The homepage exhibits an enticing portfolio carousel using each project as a design building block for the agency's own website, simultaneously offering a smooth user journey and online experience.

The menu navigation bar opts for a semi-sticky route. It's evident and discernible, however, it takes a backseat as users embark on their scrolling journey. The website is simple, easy to navigate, and eye candy!

14. Santani by Artrivo

[Source: Santani]

Standout Features:

  • Captivating image blocks
  • Clean layout with elegant fonts
  • User-friendly navigation options

The Santani website designed by Artrivo uses stunning imagery, negative space, and symmetrical layouts for a simple yet sophisticated experience.

Upon entry, users can marvel at the full-screen image banner encapsulating the Santani experience: luxurious and serene. It immediately sets the tone for the brand and creates a sense of aspiration!

The homepage uses white space excellently, resulting in a clean and uncluttered layout. This minimalist approach allows the mesmerizing visuals of Santani's hotels and resorts to take center stage.

The framed image blocks featuring readable content make for a user-friendly experience. Information is presented clearly, and the dainty typeface adds a touch of elegance while maintaining consistency with the brand's character.

The sticky navigation bar and booking window also enhance the website's usability. Visitors can easily explore different pages or make a booking without having to scroll back to the top.

Alternatively, a hamburger menu opens up a sidebar, ensuring user convenience on various devices!

15. Hip H’Opera by Shtudio

[Source: Hip H’Opera]

Standout Features:

  • Vibrant icons and grunge background
  • Parallax scrolling technique
  • Unique typography for artist statement

Hip H'Opera's website design by Shtudio is a mesmerizing online showcase of a professional opera singer's "songs of protest, redemption, and love."

The website's dark-themed UI immediately captures attention. The colorful icons and illustrations against a plain grunge background complement the artist's unique style. They provide the perfect stage for the artist's performances to shine.

The background has a static effect, too! This juxtaposition of dark and vibrant elements elevates the site's simplicity and adds visual intensity.

Parallax scrolling offers an interactive dimension and depth to the browsing experience. As users scroll, the visuals come to life. It also allows visitors to explore the content at their own pace, creating a dynamic and personalized journey.

The artist's statement is prominently displayed in large font, emphasizing their artistic vision. Combining dainty and serif typography adds a creative touch, enhancing the site's readability and aesthetic appeal.

Our design experts recognize the most innovative and creative designs from across the globe. Visit Design Awards to see the:

Our team also ranks agencies worldwide to help you find a qualified agency partner. Visit our Agency Directory for the top Logo Design Companies, as well as:

Get a chance to become the next Design Award winner.
SUBMIT YOUR DESIGN
Subscribe to Spotlight Newsletter
Subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest industry news