# Classic brutalism

Also called: raw web, brutalist websites, anti-design, default-HTML aesthetic, web 1.0 brutalism  
Era: 2014-2018 peak (brutalistwebsites.com era)  
Page: https://designforai.dev/style/classic-brutalism

## Traits

- looks unstyled on purpose: system fonts, default blue links, visible structure
- black text on white or a single harsh colour; no shading, no images unless raw
- tables, lists, underlined links, monospace, default form controls
- dense, left-aligned, no max-width niceties, sometimes overlapping elements
- honest about being a document; scrollbars and borders exposed
- occasionally huge type or a single garish colour as the only decoration
- no motion, or crude motion (blink, marquee)

Palette: #ffffff page, #000000 text, #0000ee link, #551a8b visited, #ff0000 one screaming accent, #c0c0c0 dividers

Type: Times New Roman / Georgia (serif) or Courier New / Courier Prime (mono) or Arial; sizes near browser defaults (16px body), headings bold at 24-32px; no custom webfonts

## Do

- keep default browser styling for links, buttons and form controls
- use HTML structure as the design: headings, hr, tables, ordered lists
- pick one loud colour and use it for one thing only

## Don't

- do not add rounded corners, shadows or gradients
- do not centre everything and add hero sections; that is a template, not brutalism
- do not use icon sets; plain text labels or ASCII

Known for it: Craigslist, Hacker News, Berkshire Hathaway, Drudge Report

## CSS seed

```css
:root{--bg:#ffffff; --fg:#000000; --accent:#0000ee; --alert:#ff0000; --radius:0; --border:1px solid #000; --font:'Times New Roman',serif}
```

## Prompt

Build the site in classic web brutalism. Page background #ffffff, text #000000, links #0000ee underlined, visited #551a8b. Fonts: Times New Roman for body at 16px and Courier New for code and labels; headings bold, no letter-spacing tricks, sizes 32/24/18px. No border-radius, no box-shadow, no gradients, no webfonts, no icons. Layout is a plain document: h1, paragraphs, hr dividers, ul/ol lists, and a real table for any data. Content sits left-aligned at max-width 720px with 16px padding; nav is a row of underlined text links separated by pipes. Buttons and inputs keep default browser appearance with a 1px solid #000 border. One accent #ff0000 used only for the single most important call to action. No animation at all. Every element should look like it was written in 1996 and never redesigned.