1990s

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 aesthetic that would come to define the era like 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.
  
• Kimberly Hirsh has found some sites she developed in the 1990s preserved on the Internet Archive:
  • Curtain Up! Community Theater
  • Riverside High School Junior Classical League/Latin Club
  • personal site on Geocities
  • Kimberly's Piggy Page on Angelfire
• Tantek Çelik 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/

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

• 2020-06-18 Max Böck: The Return of the 90s Web
• 2020-12-03 10 Things That Used to Be on Every Website That You Totally Forgot About

Tools

• icons for a 1990s "silk" vibe: http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/silk/

See Also

• nostalgia
• 1980s
• 2000s
• timeline
• Yesterweb
• A search engine for *old* websites: http://oldavista.com
• https://twitter.com/cybrxangel/status/1546598639698677763
  • "technology design peaked here" @cybrxangel July 11, 2022
• 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 ⁋ by olia
• 2024-03-13 Why I’m Ready to Party Like It’s 1999…Again / Dial-Up Modems Can Stay in the Past Tho…