The Scandinavian Style
Scandinavian aesthetics continue to strongly influence the way we imagine the modern web.
“Scandinavia has never been more chic. From Nordic noir to hygge hype, Scandi is in.”
— Kayleigh Toyra, Finnish-British designer
Plenty of breathing room, a restrained colour palette, simple typography, and nothing that doesn’t need to be there.
If you want to create a Scandinavian-inspired design, start by asking what you can remove rather than what you can add. When users land on a website, they shouldn’t be hit with everything at once. Instead, there should be enough space for them to understand where to look and what to do next.
Spotify is a good example of how Scandinavian design works in real life. Its interface contains a huge amount of information, but its visual system doesn’t demand attention. Instead, it stops all that information from turning into chaos.
The British Style
Where Scandinavian design tends to ask what can be removed, British design is often more willing to ask what can be combined. Old and new. Formal and irreverent. Elegant and deliberately awkward.
“We have an incredible heritage of classical design, but because we are islanders, we are resourceful and constantly invent something new. Our design is a hybrid: a little tradition, a little anarchy. Just like punk, which we gave birth to.”
— Darren Clanford
It’s a pretty good description of British design: eclectic, a bit eccentric, individual, and not afraid to be unpredictable.
British websites often use things that other styles might avoid: unexpected typefaces, bold typography, unusual layouts, and a bit of visual irony. Things don’t always have to match perfectly.
Newspapers, magazines, books, and publishing projects need both structure and personality. They need to be clear, but they also need to have their own voice. That’s probably why British design feels so at home when it comes to publishing.
The Japanese Style
Japanese design can feel like the complete opposite of both Scandinavian restraint and British eccentricity. Where one style aims for visual calm and another embraces striking contrasts, Japanese design can embrace complexity, detail, and decoration.
Instead of treating decoration as something unnecessary, Japanese design can use detail to create rhythm, atmosphere, and meaning.
This is also why Japanese design can work so well for technology and editorial projects. Instead of hiding information, it can make a feature of it while finding structure within all that complexity.
Different Cultures, Different Solutions
Scandinavian design uses space.
British design uses contrast.
Japanese design uses complexity.
And behind all of the there is usually more interesting than aesthetics alone.
There is a culture.