A Look Back at HOW’s Website

Posted on November 30, 2011 by Jessica Kuhn
Categories: Design Inspiration: Ideas for Designers, Design Technology News, Industry Trends & Software Reviews Tags: , , .

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Flashback to 1995, the year the Internet became commercialized. Until this point, only major government and academic institutions had been using the Internet Protocol Suite we now hail as “The Internet.” Websites went up quickly with horrible alignment, barely any font choices and a series of gaudy rainbow gradients. But it was new and the masses loved it, and HOW’s presence online was no exception to some of those atrocities. Let’s take a journey back to an age when pages took several minutes to load and watch howdesign.com develop into the site we know today.

1996
HOWDesign.com Website 1996

HOWDesign.com launched in 1996 under the name HOW NOW. Like most major websites of that time, it had a welcome page inviting readers in with the common phrase “Click here to enter.” This unfortunate tactic was one more obstacle between the user and the content. The page even had links to www.netscape.com and www.microsoft.com in order to download Netscape 2.01 or IE 3.0.

HOWDesign.com Website 1996

Once a user clicked to enter the homepage, they saw the above screen. The array of bright colors was another unfortunate trend of the time, but it wouldn’t have been the 90s without it.

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About Jessica Kuhn

As senior and online editor of HOW, Jessica has learned that designers are some of the most interesting, fun-loving and innovative people around. She sees stunning work all day long and is surrounded by creative energy from the readers of HOW, whether she’s perusing Twitter, at HOW Design Live, or looking at HOW Competition winners. This inspiration encourages her to pursue her own passions. Part of that passion is writing about creatives who are Designing Change.

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