Fresher Styles for Web Designers: More Eye Candy from the Underground

Chapter 06. 1996 Dirt Style

Â	Welcome to the INTERNET. ... ENJOY the RIDE.	Â
Â	--A BADLY ANIMATED .GIF, CIRCA 1996

The early years of the World Wide Web saw a proliferation of very unattractive websites made by amateur designers. Rather than beginning with a visual mockup in Photoshop and coding their pages accordingly, most early web designers simply began with the HTML itself. Instead of striving to overcome the inherent limitations of the code, they let its limitations guide their design decisions. This approach often resulted in wall-to-wall screen text separated by cheesy beveled borders atop tiling animated .gif backgrounds of twinkling stars in “cyberspace.”

This hobbyist homepage era lasted until corporations and more professional designers ...