Simple and elegant, minimalist nail art designs are easy for beginning artists to replicate and a client favorite. Minimalist designs generally involve executing basic lines, dots, and curves, and tend to focus on maintaining balance, symmetry, and order with only a very few design elements. Repetition is also a major aspect of this style of art, as well as neutral colors.
Technically speaking, minimalist nail art requires fewer tools than other styles; you’ll only need a basic set of striper brushes and dotters in various sizes. Minimalism is also a style that many nail technicians can learn with just a few hours of hands-on training or practice. Best of all, these designs take little time to execute and can be marked up incrementally per nail — anywhere from $3-$5.
Basic Concepts: When adding minimalist nail art to your service menu, it’s best to have four core concepts and five variations of each concept for clients to choose from — any more than 20 total will overwhelm your clients.
Shapes: The hallmark of minimalist nail art is basic geometry. Clean-cut squares, circles, and lines are almost always used in minimalist art. What you will not see are large sweeping patterns or intensely detailed icons or pictorials.
Rule of Thirds: When composing minimalist nail art, it’s important to consider the “rule of thirds” as a framework for creating a design that’ll grab a viewer’s attention. Artists throughout history have demonstrated that off-center elements create more tension, energy, and interest than centered elements. In the chart above, most of the contrasting elements are near an edge — very few land dead center.
Color: When putting your nail art concepts on display, choose colors wisely. Just because a specific color is popular for a gel manicure doesn’t mean it’ll work for minimalist nail art. Well-designed nail art needs to play by specific color rules. Artists should consider whether concepts should incorporate monochromatic, analogous, or chromatic colors.
Fodder for Fearsome Art
Many different schools of art — abstract, surrealism, and pop art among them — can serve as inspiration for stellar nail art.
Street artist Banksy was the inspiration for this set of nails by King. These nails by Los Angeles- based nail tech Chelsea King pay homage to some classic works of art.
Joseph Orr is the CEO and co-founder of maniorpedi.com, New York’s Mobile Nail Salon. He works directly with customers who book on-demand appointments in their homes, and also with Fortune 500 clients who want to set up weekly and bi-weekly corporate office visits. You can follow Joseph on Instagram or Twitter @maniorpedi.
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