Vandelay Website Design Blog

35+ Websites with Minimal Color Schemes

The color scheme of a website is obviously one of the most significant design decisions that needs to be made. When it comes to color schemes, there are all kinds of possibilities. Some use a bright, colorful scheme to create an attractive website. The sites that are featured in this post are using a simple color scheme of mostly black, white and gray.

Monochromatic color schemes can be used with any color, not just black and white, but we’ll be focusing on black and white here. Most of these sites use other colors sparingly, which can be extremely effective for making certain elements stand out. Also, because the element of color has been reduced in these designs, many of them rely heavily on typography and layout structure, as you will see in those being featured.

For more minimalist design inspiration, see:

The New Yorker

The New Yorker

Designing the News

Designing the News

The DECK

The DECK

Frieze Magazine

Frieze Magazine

Thom Bennett

Thom Bennett

The Morning News

The Morning News

Cheshire Maintenance and Development

Chesire

Red Chilli

Chilli

Romsound

Romsound

DSGN + DVLP

DSGN + DVLP

David Airey

David Airey

Coding Horror

Coding Horror

Rikcat Industries

Rikcat

Maqina

Maqiina

Chama Inc

Chama

Jon Tangerine

Jon Tangerine

Mark Wieman

Mark Wieman

Gapers Block

Gapers Block

Twisted Intellect

Twisted Intellect

5ThirtyOne

5ThirtyOne

Subtraction

Subtraction

Hot Meteor

Hot Meteor

Cameron Moll

Cameron Moll

Robbie Manson

Robbie Manson

Silent Engine

Silent Engine

StyleSpion

StyleSpion

Elysium Burns

Elysium Burns

Mia Holtes Blog

Mia Hiltes

Lushpad

Lushpad

Paiko

Paiko

Don Gunderman

Don Gunderman

dkoo

dKoo

80/20

80/20

Corporate Risk Watch

Corporate Risk Watch

BlackBeltMonkey

BlackBeltMonkey

Conan Robbins

Conan Robbins

The Old Fashioned

Old Fashioned

For more design inspiration, see:

Originally Published December 1st, 2008

34 Responses

  1. Matt | December 2nd, 2008 at 1:39 am

    These are beautiful designs. It’s amazing how following basic graphic design rules can result in such gorgeous work.

  2. Kai Müller | December 2nd, 2008 at 3:21 am

    Thank You for featuring StyleSpion.de in this awesome list.

  3. Umut | December 2nd, 2008 at 6:10 am

    Very cool collection.

    Specially I love few colors in grid-based websites. Colors, grids.. it all becomes very readable. Just like “lushpad” in the collection.

  4. mia | December 2nd, 2008 at 6:34 am

    Thank you for mentioning me!

  5. Andrew | December 2nd, 2008 at 6:58 am

    Coding Horror has an awful font that makes it unreadable. The others are okay, though.

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  8. eeallo | December 2nd, 2008 at 8:42 am

    There is more: Modula has also a very clean, minimal layout.

  9. RaSh | December 2nd, 2008 at 8:48 am

    Wow!
    There’s something in each of the sites that makes it look different. Proves that a “flashy” theme isn’t the only way to get a distinctive look!

    Nice collection!

  10. Vladimir Carrer | December 2nd, 2008 at 10:00 am

    Lovely collection! Good work!

  11. Janko | December 2nd, 2008 at 11:09 am

    Very nice showcase. It’s interesting that the most of designs have black/white as a basis. Only few of them experimented with other colors.

  12. conancreatif | December 2nd, 2008 at 12:02 pm

    Thanks a million for including my design among these other very talented designers.

  13. srikanth | December 2nd, 2008 at 1:03 pm

    All designs are Simple and beautiful.I like Sites with not more than two Colors.

  14. Matt | December 2nd, 2008 at 1:33 pm

    Great collection. I find it much harder to create a high quality “minimalist” design then it is to go all out with color and photos.

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  16. Heiko | December 3rd, 2008 at 5:09 am

    Great list and thank you so much for featuring my site among all these talented people up there! Great blog :)

  17. Nathan Beck | December 3rd, 2008 at 5:11 am

    Nice post, goes to show that you can still do so much without colour or with minimalistic use of colour and visual embellishment.

  18. Simon | December 3rd, 2008 at 9:59 am

    Thanks for including - my site (http://redchilli.com).

    Great collection.
    S

  19. Bradley | December 3rd, 2008 at 3:49 pm

    Gapers Block and Hot Meteor rock!

  20. falanfanny | December 4th, 2008 at 5:18 am

    I like all of the above themes…Your blog is great with beneficial content that is helpful to everyone. Here I came to the point’s that I am not aware of.

  21. lojze | December 6th, 2008 at 11:34 am

    Nice and practical websites and easy to use.

  22. Akashrine | December 6th, 2008 at 11:17 pm

    Really nice collection. We can had http://www.hugeinc.com/ and http://www.akashrine.fr ^^

  23. Shirley | December 7th, 2008 at 12:50 am

    I love this list. I’m a big fan of minimalism.

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  25. Vitaly Pimenov | December 10th, 2008 at 1:43 pm

    Great list. I would add The Grid System

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  27. Alex | December 14th, 2008 at 7:56 pm

    great subject. I’d like to add zElement.com

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  29. Vol Cars | December 16th, 2008 at 7:03 am

    Thanks for sharing the list. Some of the sites really look quite cool and it is good to see how some good use of colors be great despite using blacks, whites and grays,,,,

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  32. Sean Baker | December 18th, 2008 at 10:40 am

    Thanks for including my site on this list, bro. Means a lot. I’m in some good company!

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