I disagree with the statement that minimalism is just one style. There's something more fundamental to it than what can be encompassed by sweeping it under the

I disagree with the statement that minimalism is just one style. There's something more fundamental to it than what can be encompassed by sweeping it under the carpet of "style". Minimalism along with its cousins of Utilitarianism and Tufte-like information design all seek an elegance through elimination of components that are not vital to some singular goal of the philosophy. Utilitarianism: capacity generation/utility Tufte: information and interpretation Minimalism: content and structure The importance here is that given that our brains have limited capacity for attention, these philosophies help us the most so long as our goals reside near the goal of the designer. With a lot of other "styles" displayed in the article the goals were less practical and further from the end user with intent to express the glory of god or the power of a monarch. They are fantastically beautiful, but in those cases beauty is orthogonal to their function (meeting places and homes). So that's the twist. You can make ornate, anti-minimal designs so long as their beauty lies at least somewhat alongside the purpose of the website. It's long been the maxim of web design that Users Spend Epsilon Seconds at Your Site and unless the purpose and content is clear like gunfire you're out of luck. But then you've got "functional beauty" such as that contained within detailed arts like typography. Each has a distinct utilitarian flair, but espouses a lot of craft via excessive care for detail. So, some examples: http://wufoo.com/ http://jasonsantamaria.com/articles/royal/ http://blog.iso50.com/ http://joshuaink2006.johnoxton.co.uk/ (mbateman already mentioned Joshua Ink, but it's just a really good example) And really, though it's not the same medium, the maximalist style of David Foster Wallace is from the exact same creche. Of course, the catch is that with every added element, you take the risk of having your design run away from you. It's a viciously hard thing to do, I think, keeping beauty and purpose aligned.