from minimalism to brutalism

I think its quite common to get the two confused, minimalism and brutalism.

Most people are pretty familiar with minimalism as a design concept at this point. White space. Emptiness. Less, but better. Apple.

On the other hand, brutalism began in the 1950s, when architects in post WWII Britain discovered truth in raw materials. They called it “béton brut” - raw concrete. The digital world inherited this honesty decades later.

Digital brutalism exposes the web’s raw materials: unpolished HTML, system fonts, blue hyperlinks, harsh background colors.

If you’re unfamiliar with brutalist design, check out a few examples here https://www.brutalistwebsites.com/ (some are more brutalist than others but you’ll get the idea).

In my opinion, the key difference between the two is that minimalism is more of an aesthetic movement that often improves functionality, whereas brutalism is much more of a functional movement that at times can cultivate a unique and interesting aesthetic.

A brutalist website might use Times New Roman not because it’s unattractive, but because it’s a system font that loads instantly. It might have stark black text on a white background because that’s how HTML was meant to be read. The apparent “roughness” is actually deeply functional.

A minimalist site might hide much of the navigation and structure to achieve a clean look, while a brutalist site lays bare its underlying framework, often exposing the raw HTML and CSS code. That said, brutalist sites can sometimes be minimalistic too - the two aren’t mutually exclusive.

In 2025, minimalism is now beaten to death. So beaten in fact, that even saying that phrase — “minimalism has been beaten to death” — feels repetitive.

I don’t look at a minimalist design and get excited anymore. I get bored. I’m watching a funeral for creativity where all the mourners are wearing the same black turtleneck. There’s been significant pushback, but it still remains wildly popular.

Why?

If I dislike minimalism so much, why did I choose to make this personal website — the most publicly available reflection of myself — minimalistic?

I’m lazy.

And there’s the issue.

I’m not a designer, I’m a developer. Creating a brutalist design that isn’t minimalistic is much more difficult to do.

Developing brutalist sites is challenging. Unconventional layouts can break on certain browsers if not coded carefully. Responsive design gets trickier with overlapping, non-rectangular elements. Minimalist sites, while not effortless, are comparatively easier to implement consistently.

A bold, clashing, color palette, and aggressive fonts looks amateurish unless you put in a lot time into both design and development. Especially for a website, using unconventional design patterns gets tricky. I have to make sure it works on all browsers, every type of screen size.

I remember making the designs for this site that you’re looking at right now during a 90 minute lecture in my sophomore year of college. I didn’t do much with it then, but a few years later when I wanted somewhere to publish my thoughts with little to no stakes, I found these designs and went with them not necessarily because I really love them, but because it was easy. It was a compromise, and I’ll probably redo the designs soon, when I have more time.

Sure, I could have made this same site using system fonts and no color, but it still would’ve been minimalistic. If I’m going minimalist anyway, I might as well make it look nice.

The whole process from design to development took me about 5 hours and I was going slow.

Embracing maximalism and brutalism is harder. Advocates for minimalism claim the same, but thats just not true. It may have been true in the 80s when users had to be trained to use unfamiliar minimalist interfaces. Now, minimalist elements are well within the zeitgeist - hamburger menus, flat icons, generous whitespace.

In my opinion, there’s very few reasons for a brand to spend millions on a minimalistic rebrand.

All this to say, brands should try to embrace a brutalistic image instead of a minimalistic one. It’s a pivot, but I think its the way to go.

Unless you’re lazy, which is fine.