Over the years web design has gone from being a simple tool to help promote your business and share things with the online community, to a space where you can allow your personality and brand to really be expressed through implementing exquisite design, artistic technique and liberating creativity.
Art movements of the past are constantly being reimagined, revitalised and represented in advertising, marketing and across digital multimedia – and can be seen cropping up both subtly and unashamedly in web design. It is not only the aesthetics of art movements where web designers are known to find inspiration, but also in the philosophy involved with each movement and this can be expressed in all aspects of web design from structure and user experience, to backgrounds and typographical design.
Like all design techniques and styles, these remnants of past art movements come and go in web design usually in synchronisation with the ever evolving social trends. It seems that with the speed of advancement of web technologies and the capabilities of web development tools there comes a greater freedom to explore these art and design movements now, more than ever.
Gone are the days when a webpage contained only letters, numbers and a couple of low res images. Nowadays the web is a treasure trove of intricately designed, multi-layered and dynamic works of digital art that have been inspired and shaped by famous art and design movements of the past.
Art & Design Movements
Art Nouveau was an art movement that was made popular at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century. It is a design technique inspired by natural forms and curves that established art as more than just paintings and sculptures – expanding into architecture and interior design. The style aimed to act as an extension of the environment around you and freed art of the cluttered, ostentatious overtones that it had in the previous century. Web design is essentially developed to act as a digital extension of your business and many web designers take inspiration from Art Nouveau styles to enhance and emphasise the company ethos – particularly in typographical design and logo design. The clean edges and the elegant curves of art nouveau make way for a very stylish and sleek digital design.
An art technique that uses shape, colour and form that exists separately from real life visual representations could be described as abstract art. A sub-set of this technique titled abstract expressionism is a form of abstract art that is redefined by artists’ individual style. Abstract art and design inspires a lot of UI designers and is distinguishable in interactive navigation and visual story-telling in new websites. The theory of abstraction is also an interesting photographic technique, and with web designers aiming to create a user experience that is unique to each visitor, the use of abstract photography can often offer intrigue without plainly showing a descriptive image – allowing the user to discover for themselves. Abstract photography and art in web design can also help to add colour and shape to brands that are very difficult to define.
Appearing in France at the close of the first world war, Art Deco is a design style that took the world by storm through the roaring 20’s. The V & A museum state that ‘It drew on tradition and yet simultaneously celebrated the mechanised, modern world,’ and although it somewhat mirrored the elegance of Art Nouveau it also openly exaggerated geometric shape, colours and ornate decoration. The structure of web design relies greatly on this marriage of form and decoration and you can see it in advanced web designs. This can be achieved through experimentation with parallax web design using depth, image layering and a bold colour palette.
Surrealism is an avant-garde art movement that involved the unusual juxtaposition of several different components within one design. Much like a form of collage, Surrealism offers a way to combine multiple naturalistic objects within a scene of disarray resulting in an image that is both recognisable and discombobulating. Surrealist painters like Pablo Picasso used the technique to create an abstract version of portrait paintings which many people consider to be ‘humorous and ugly’ rather than a demonstration of technical skill – but the delicate choice of colour and shape to create these images is a philosophy that web designers need to master in order to be successful.
Cubism is an art movement and technique that is utilised across many areas of web design. The smooth lines and edges of cubism can be seen interpreted in web design layouts, interface designs and within backgrounds. Cubism offers a unity of shape which distinguishes itself as a design technique that offers clean lines and the ability to be dismantled and rebuilt in order to create the correct aesthetic. This layering and placement technique is very much present in web design today, especially as it is becoming much more necessary for designers to build web templates and wire frames from scratch. You often see cubism as a technique paired alongside the simplicity of minimalism to create a professional and striking web design.
Minimalism is a art movement that has come back around within the last couple of years, with a vengeance. The need for intuitive simplicity in web design has meant that whitespace, simple geometric shapes, and monochromatic design is celebrated across the web and used amongst some of the biggest brands for its clarity and timeless quality.
Conceptual art or conceptualism is an art movement in which ideas and concepts take precedence over the outcome or aesthetics of the work. Conceptual art has inspired the philosophical thinking of many web designers as it strips design of unnecessary decoration and concerns itself with a more utilitarian approach for design – much like its predecessor, minimalism.
One of the most recognised art movements of the 20th Century is pop art. Taking influence from Hollywood movies, comic books and pop music this technique is a favourite with web designers as it can offer a recognisably retro aesthetic achieved through simple experimentation with colours and textures. Andy Warhol was a fan of repeating images in several different colour ways and Roy Lichtenstein was brilliant at creating emotion within his illustrated characters. These artists are often paid homage to in background designs and in the creation of quirky vintage style marketing campaigns- this is very on trend right now.
Web designs inspired by famous art movements
Inspiration spans centuries
Fashions, trends, innovations and fads are all dependent on social and cultural changes happening around us. Design relies massively on these changes in order to keep renewing and evolving. Art movements are constantly coming back around – being changed up, revitalised, modernised, and dismantled in order to create something new and exiting in design. The web is at the forefront of technological advancement at the moment and it is the philosophies of artists and designers both old and new that have allowed this pace of development to continue.
Reactive Graphics take inspiration from various artists and designers and can work with businesses to emulate a design style that would work well for their business. By choosing elements from a variety of different design aesthetics we are able to develop web designs that are completely bespoke and tailor made to your exact requirements.
Please contact us for more information and please do let us know which art and design movements have inspired you!
