Minimalism is actually surprisingly difficult to achieve. Especially on the internet. Buttons, forms, calls-to-action. All of these things are generally consdidered ‘the norm’; and all of them threaten the purity of a minimalistic approach.
When ay-pe, a York based CGI and Video Post Production House approached us with a website brief that comprised: one button, big images and hardly any text. We leapt at the chance to get involved. Keeping it simple means just that; as little fuss and dressing as possible. Let the content sing, let the images shine. So that’s what we did.
Keeping it clean.
We distilled the approach down to a few basic rules:
- No convoluted navigation structure or device
- Images and videos big enough to examine in detail without ‘clicking to view larger’
- No hard sell, no buzz-words, no-nonsense. Let the work speak for itself.
So, simple typography was the order of the day, we used columns to aid legibility; providing design elements that introduced function – as well as form. To display ay-pe’s incredibly impressive portfolio of work we used either; the whole screen. Or; as much screen width as possible. No need for pop-up ‘larger images’ here.
Ay-pe are a company with a personality, a start-up with a serious ‘can-do’ attitude and the form to back it up. A blog had crossed their minds, and when we gave them the price – they bit our hands off. So with a few hours spent transferring the design approach across to a WordPress template and a bit more technical jiggery pokery. All of a sudden ay-pe were publishing their thoughts on the world wide web; and what a cracking job they’re doing of it too! Take a look for yourself, and keep your eyes peeled for updates soon to come.