1990s
Following the 1980s and preceding the 2000s.
The 1990s was a decade that saw the invention and growth of the web, dominated by independent websites, as well as nascent silos like Geocities, with a particular brightly colored and often translucent design aesthetic that would come to define the era along with under construction graphics, dancing animals, site counters, ornate backgrounds, and guest books.
Why
Aesthetics from the 1990s, especially on websites, are a popular form of nostalgia that harken back to when the web was much quirkier, weirder, and more diverse, across a plethora of independent sites exploring a new medium without strict rules or expectations.
IndieWeb Examples
- Aaron Parecki archived the version of his website that was online from 1999-2003 at http://2003.aaronparecki.com
- Astrid Yu has a funky 90s-style 88x31 banner of her site.
banner-88x31.gif - Kimberly Hirsh has found some sites she developed in the 1990s preserved on the Internet Archive:
- Tantek Γelik started his personal site tantek.com in the 1990s.
- Dr. Matt Lee had various webpages in various places from 1993 onwards before getting a domain name in the 90s.
- https://mat.tl/archive/1994.htm is a copy of the site within the first year found on a floppy disk.
- Jeffrey Zeldman of https://zeldman.com/ started his website and blog in 1995, many top level pages:
- https://web.archive.org/web/19970711165228/http://www.zeldman.com/toc.html
- https://web.archive.org/web/19970711165429/http://www.zeldman.com/faq.html
- https://web.archive.org/web/19970605010848/http://www.zeldman.com/awards.html
- https://web.archive.org/web/19970711165939/http://www.zeldman.com/steal.html
- https://zeldman.com/desktops/
- Joe Crawford has copies of websites archived (including markup to assure they look now as they did then)
Other Examples
- Good blog/news stream design example: https://web.archive.org/web/19970220031619/http://www.mmcorp.com/mmcsite/news/news.html
Silo Examples
- Angelfire was established in 1996 and is still running least some of its original services (allowing for updates), while supporting links to user profiles
Articles
- 2020εΉ΄06ζ18ζ₯ Max BΓΆck: The Return of the 90s Web
- 2020εΉ΄12ζ03ζ₯ 10 Things That Used to Be on Every Website That You Totally Forgot About
Images
- https://twitter.com/cybrxangel/status/1546598639698677763
technology design peaked here
arrangement of various translucent colored devices from the 1990s. @cybrxangel July 11, 2022
- ...
Tools
- icons for a 1990s "silk" vibe: http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/silk/
See Also
- nostalgia
- timeline
- Yesterweb
- A search engine for *old* websites: http://oldavista.com
- Logos of 1996 era W3C Members: https://twitter.com/koalie/status/1421140473943560194
- "Here's the time capsule of @w3c members from 25 years, 3 months ago (April 1996) https://www.w3.org/Consortium/Member/IconList.html" @koalie July 30, 2021
- history
- Web design house https://dayjob.work/ has a 1990s-era Windows desktop design, and was also responsible for building the site https://flybyjing.com/ which also has aspects of 1990s-era web design such as its bright non-primary colors and marquee heading (though implemented in CSS) while also having a responsive layout.
- ID4
- https://www.geocities.ws/oldternet/
- "read, write, own" web β by olia
- 2024εΉ΄03ζ13ζ₯ Why Iβm Ready to Party Like Itβs 1999...Again / Dial-Up Modems Can Stay in the Past Tho...
- 90s era reviews and site design left as is to the present: http://www.roughedge.com/
| IndieWeb over the decades | |
|---|---|
| Decades | 1970s β’ 1980s β’ 1990s β’ 2000s β’ 2010s β’ 2020s β’ IndieWebCamps over the years |
- https://cybercultural.com/p/blogs-rss-1999/
- 1990s web site designs were dominated by HTML Table based layouts, with a few cutting edge websites using CSS float which only worked in a few browsers.