Rather, the style was an attempt to create architecture that honestly reflected purpose and form. Brutalist buildings weren’t primarily avant garde artistic statements - although some are remarkably forward-thinking and provocative - nor were they designed to intimidate inhabitants with monolithic walls and cantilevers.
People have recently come to the defense of these maligned buildings as they fall into disrepair and become targets for demolition. Though it has since been associated with monolithic, domineering concrete government buildings aptly described as brutal, Brutalism is in fact an ethos of truth to materials, emerging from postwar ideals of transparency, economy, and stability. Coined by Swedish architect Hans Asplund, “Brutalism” described a style of architecture that intentionally revealed the underlying structural materials, derived from the French béton brut, “raw concrete”. Most of what’s labeled Web Brutalism is a normcore visual aesthetic - the web version of anti-art, a rejection of refinement and sophistication - rather than a meaningful digital analogue to architectural Brutalism. The ‘anti-ists’ or artists see web design as an (still) undervalued form of art and don’t show much respect the status quo and mostly get bad press.“
#Notion web design driver
The UX minimalists, in contrast, see efficiency and performance as the main driver of Web Brutalism and even believe that the radical limitation of possibilities can boost conversions. ”The purists reference strongly to the architectural characteristics of Web Brutalism, such as the concept of ‘truth to materials’ and the use of the purest markup elements available. In “ The Split Personality of Web Brutalism,” Frederick O’Brien quotes Pascal Deville, curator of the Brutalist Websites archive, on the different types of practitioners: There’s some debate about what constitutes Web Brutalism. The trend is decidedly hip, and popular enough to show up in The New York Times articles and Bloomberg design conference sites.
3D art, italics, plain, neo grotesk fonts, monstrous hover states, jewel tones, thick dividing lines, harsh contrasts are some of the hallmarks. Navigation elements are either in your face or purposefully obscured.
Things animate that shouldn’t, things don’t animate that should, things animate in ways that they shouldn’t. Think JNCO jeans in a sea of khaki Wordpress chino sameness. Web Brutalism has become a catchall term for websites that flout the conventions of modern web design with a kind of droll, utilitarian nostalgia for the early web. We see a little of this weirdness in the sites cataloged on Brutalist Websites. Thankfully, you can spend Bill Gates’ money using just keyboard navigation. The web is fundamental to modern life, but modern life is also weird and bizarre and our commitment to usability needn’t hinder the expression of that strangeness. We got too serious, too mainstream, as the web grew. Yet the standardization of web patterns and general obsession with optimization have prompted calls for a return to the “weird web” (calls which notably reminisce about Flash development in the early aughts). WCAG standards are our rules of the road, preventing needless ambiguity, error, and exclusion. Usability now has to be everyone’s priority. Spolsky’s post reads differently today than it did in 2000, a few years before web accessibility regulations were legislated into federal law. But nobody would go there, they would all be at Coyote Ugly Saloon pouring beer on each other.” You get the feeling that if Mr Nielsen designed a singles bar, it would be well lit, clean, with giant menus printed in Arial 14 point, and you’d never have to wait to get a drink. But it is simply not everyone’s number one priority, nor should it be. Sure, usability is important (I wrote a whole book about it). Flash always reduces usability. On the other hand, every time I read Jakob Nielsen, I get this feeling that he really doesn’t appreciate that usability is not the most important thing on earth. “Jakob Nielsen says that Flash is ‘99% bad.’ I have to agree.
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