Wabi-sabi has roots in 15th-century Japanese tea ceremony culture, where tea master Sen no Rikyu elevated rustic, imperfect tea bowls over the ornate Chinese ceramics that were fashionable at the time. The philosophy draws from Buddhist teachings on impermanence (mujo) and the acceptance of suffering — finding beauty not despite decay and irregularity, but because of them.
The term itself combines two concepts: wabi, the beauty of simplicity and solitude, and sabi, the beauty that comes with age and wear. A cracked pot repaired with gold (kintsugi), a moss-covered stone, a faded ink painting — these are wabi-sabi objects. They are beautiful because they carry the marks of time, not despite them.
On the web, wabi-sabi is rare precisely because digital design tends toward the flawless. But when it appears — in muted palettes, uneven layouts, rough textures, and generous silence — it offers something most websites cannot: the feeling that imperfection is not only acceptable but sacred. It is the antithesis of the startup landing page, and that is its power.