Designing Minimalist Websites: A Case Study on Aetherial View

Designing Minimalist Websites: A Case Study on Aetherial ViewDesigning Minimalist Websites: A Case Study on Aetherial View

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Ruslan Subbota

max

• May 5

I almost ruined this one.

Just finished a concept site for a nature photography studio — Aetherial View. First draft had everything I usually reach for. Clever scroll animations. A secondary nav. Hover micro-interactions. A bit of texture behind the hero.

Looked great in Figma. Felt awful next to the actual photographs.

A heron at golden hour doesn't need help from a parallax effect. It just needs to not be interrupted.

So I started removing things. The animations. The second nav. The texture. Half the type styles. Until the site basically got out of the way.

What's left: three nav items. An asymmetric grid that gives each shot room. Serif only where it earns attention — pull quotes, section heads. Black background as a gallery wall.

The hardest part wasn't designing it. It was trusting that less would feel like enough.

For a portfolio site, that's usually the whole brief — even when nobody says it out loud.

Web Design Webflow Figma

Abox Agency

pro

• May 8

This looks clean and well thought out. How long did it take you to bring everything together?

Ruslan Subbota

max

• May 8

Thanks! It takes around 2 weeks to finalize

Abox Agency

pro

• May 9

Amazing!

Ajayi Sarah

• May 5

Intentional work. Every piece has a purpose.

Madob Acharjya

• May 6

Stunning!

Vyudu Inc

pro

• May 9

The Aetherial View work is doing the hard thing well. Stripping back to three nav items and an asymmetric grid takes more conviction than adding scroll animations ever does. The serif on pull quotes earning attention only when it has earned it is the move that lands.

Hakeem Framer

max

• May 8

Responsive Navbar and Footer Component Design for Wayward

Good navigation makes complexity feel simple.

Open to take on new projects -> https://contra.com/studioduo

Webflow Figma wip

Olaoluwa Olanrewaju

• May 11

nice work

Kristine Vilnite

max

• May 8

How good of a web designer is AI?

I put Claude Design to the test asking it to redesign my client's product inventory page I built in Framer. In under 10min it produced 2 variations. Neither can go on client's website directly but it surfaced two years' worth of overlooked improvements I can implement manually.

The gap between AI output and production-ready website is there, but in the hands of a web designer who knows what to do with the output, it has a valuable place in the workflow.

Web Design claudedesign

Pradyumn Vaishnav

max

• May 8

Feels like AI isn’t replacing the designer, it’s just speeding up the "thinking layer". Like you said, it surfaces things we somehow miss for months. Still needs a human eye to make it actually usable, but as a brainstorming partner, it’s kind of crazy good.

Serge Herasymchuk

max

• May 8

Sometimes a website doesn’t need a full rebuild – just a clearer, more modern experience. We recently redesigned this homepage and simplified the layout, messaging, and structure. Curious which version you’d trust more at first glance: old or new?