Text-art minimalism web design

I'm a huge fan of minimalistic web design. To be honest, I don't mind if a website looks like the motherfuckingwebsite. I'd go as far as to prefer it over a fancy-looking, and therefore often slow-loading, site.

But I think it is possible do a lot better than the motherfuckingwebsite by treating text as something that can be shaped into art. With a little effort, this can drastically improve the effect a website generates.

Below I'd like to present some of my favorite websites that employ this what I like to call text-art minimalistic style. Please note that websites can change, what is presented here is their state as of june 2025.

Ian Henderson's website is definitely very close to the bare minimum of unstyled HTML the motherfuckingwebsite uses. However, he does a few smart things to make it more appealing. At the top of his start page, he uses ascii art as an image, breaking up the dry list of links. He also avoids ginormous h1, h2 or h3 tags that take away much of the attention. This might not be 100% semantically correct, but it focuses the eye on the links to pages instead of on the category title above the links. It also makes the page pleasantly compact.

When opening one of his blog entries, I like how page navigation is done. It is a simple backlink to the start page, but given the site's navigation structure, that is all it needs. The link doesn't take much attention, but you find it fast when you need it. You also don't have to wait for a menu to expand before you can take the link, it is just there.

The YAML specification start page, hosted at yaml.org, takes text-art as a website a step further by introducing color and shape. Using these two, you don't even notice that it uses one constant font size and margin throughout the whole page. The page is still very much readable and it is clear what is a header and what is content.

The way it plays with structure reminds me of Eugen Gomriger's poem "schweigen" (in English: "to remain silent"):

schweigen schweigen schweigen schweigen schweigen schweigen schweigen schweigen

Continuing with more poetic usages of text, the website of the Swiss author Franz Hohler also fits this list. Not only does the page start with an essay that would fully fit this post, but the design does just as much. When you first load the page, you are just presented with a wall of text. There is nothing else to focus on but the text, so you inevitably start reading it. And hopefully, you get drawn in, because in my opinion, Franz Hohler writes very well.

At the bottom of the page, there is a link that brings you to the actual page. However, that link is not just a normal link, it is an ugly scribbled red dot you have to click. The dot changes shape and size once you approach it with your cursor. A horrible user experience, but it is playful and fits the tone of the site. The website suddenly breaks in its minimalism, but this with great effect.

Lastly, this site also plays with margin and font. It is subtle, but has a great effect on readability and appearance.

Minimalism and a focus on text might not appeal to everyone, and as a business site it might look unprofessional. But this doesn't mean you can't use text to great effect, as for example zfs.rent shows. The page uses other styling elements like colored areas, borders and horizontal dividers, but most of the work is done with text.

In the screenshot below, I've edited their HTML to remove all colors and borders. In my opinion, it still works well.

Text-art is not just limited to static text like on HTML pages. It can also be used to great effect with video.