The concept of design neutrality, is simply to make no statement with your design. In practice, it can very difficult. Design Neutral isn’t the lack of design, but design making little or no statement. The more content your design has, be it graphic design for print or web, the more difficult it is to not make a statement. In some cases, pulling off a design neutral project takes much more work than creating a distinct style. WordPress’ default themes make as good an effort at design neutrality as I’ve seen lately. Simple, unobtrusive, but not boring. the only thing they really say is “I can’t decide on a theme”. There’s nothing wrong with that. While I’d personally choose a clear and distinct design every time, some subjects, and some writers benefit from using a default theme. It gives them a “safe” platform from which to speak. It minimizes the ability of readers to read anything into the writing that doesn’t belong. It helps the reader take the words at face value, if it is at all possible.

The confusion comes when someone removes all traces of design, and calls it neutral. It isn’t neutral. Simplistic… minimalistic maybe. Devoid of style possibly, but not neutral. Google.com is simplistic. It makes a distinct stylistic statement though, just a very minimalistic one. For a search engine which phenomenal traffic, and little original content, it works. For a blog, or personal website, it wouldn’t work.

What does work, is a simple color palette with a few well placed graphics. Midrange colors that are neither too bright, or too dark. A simple layout that is organized and efficient. Clear and legible content in common fonts. These things will give you neutrality. When looking at a design, the word subtle should come to mind.If you’re working on a design, keep this in mind: Removal of all references to style isn’t Design Neutral, it’s undesigned.