Brutalism is a movement from architecture that has found its way into web design. To the untrained eye, it looks bold, ugly, brutal. We are confronted with websites that at first sight look like a step backwards in webdesign: screaming colors, unusual navigation, layouts off the grid. Brutalism can be seen as a counter movement to the „WordPress-ification“ of the web, or what is seen as that: unification of looks, usage of well-established common patterns, conformity. While seen mostly in websites related to art content, there is a lot to learn from brutalism: Courage for non-conformity, boldness in message and „brutality“ in making decisions can go a long way.
We will look at examples of brutalist webdesign, discover interesting elements and derive thoughts to consider for our own webdesign. Whether a website is built from scratch or on top of a common WordPress theme should not restrict conceptual considerations – all towards a diverse, adventurous, fun and informative web for everybody.

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