Web Brutalism is Back — and Cooler Than Ever

Somewhere between pixel-perfect minimalism and corporate pastel overload, a quiet rebellion has been brewing on the internet. And it’s loud. Clunky. Unapologetically weird. Welcome to the return of web brutalism—the design movement that says “no thanks” to polish and perfection, and “hell yes” to raw digital expression.

So… what exactly is web brutalism?

Raw code. Harsh grids. Fonts that don’t match. Colors that clash on purpose. Brutalist websites reject polish, UX conventions, and the endless sameness of the modern web. They don’t guide you—they dare you.

Who is doing it right?

Ezekiel Aquino

A composer and creative technologist, Aquino’s site is pure intention. No clutter, no navigation fluff—just a looping stream of generative piano compositions. The design is quiet, stripped, and brutally minimal. It’s brutalism that whispers. A reminder that raw doesn’t have to shout to command presence.

Ezekiel Aquino’s generative composition interface featuring looping sheet music shaped into an oval

Colorful abstract shapes on Ezekiel Aquino’s Studio homepage, using soft pastel forms on orange back

Ezekiel Aquino’s digital archive interface showing glitchy, fragmented graphics in brutalist composi

Freak Mag

An online publication that reads like a stream of creative consciousness. The layout disorients—text, color, and form fight for your attention. But the chaos is curated. It leans into brutalism’s love of discomfort without sacrificing clarity. There’s attitude in every scroll. You either get it, or you leave.

Freak Mag homepage featuring eclectic typography, a yellow gradient background, a stylized object im

Freak Mag navigation panel with pixel art animation, colorful vertical category tabs, and hashtag-ba

Freak Mag content gallery with clashing visuals, abstract animated graphics, and a color-shifting ba

Cards Against Humanity – 99% Sale

The campaign page for the infamous Black Friday stunt. It’s brutalism at its most confrontational—massive text, nonsensical layout, a purposeful absence of design hierarchy. It’s not trying to convert. It’s trying to provoke. And it works. The discomfort is the message.

Cards Against Humanity 99% Off Sale landing page featuring red and white bold text, playful satire,

Visual from Cards Against Humanity’s Black Friday campaign showing a red bodysuit figure on gym equi

Cards Against Humanity ad featuring a masked figure in a red suit holding a landline phone, surround

Bounties

A playful distortion of traditional web design. Hover effects that don’t make sense. Layouts that feel like collage. The brutalism is semi-ironic, but effective. It invites exploration through visual friction, proving that raw design can still feel alive, not static.

Homepage of Bounties, a creative task-based platform, featuring oversized serif typography on a grid

Web brutalism isn’t about being messy for the sake of it. It’s about cutting through the noise. About reminding us that design can still be strange, opinionated, and deeply human—even when it’s digital.

The best examples? They don’t follow rules, they follow instinct. They know what they’re saying, and they say it loud—even if it’s through a broken layout, a glitchy scroll, or a typeface that makes you squint.

You don’t need to burn it all down to try it. Start small. Break a grid. Clash some colors. Use a font that feels a little too bold. The point isn’t perfection—it’s presence.

Because if your site doesn’t make someone pause, even for a second… what’s it doing?

Thank you for spending time at the Trend Desk