Retro nostalgia: the web design of the 90s

Visitor counters, guest books, flash players, content overload. The first, formative attempts at web design were made in the 90s. But as we all know: Every beginning is difficult, further development is necessary. The Internet's past - especially its development in a very short space of time - is legendary. What did it take for us to be able to use the Internet to its full potential? Investing in expensive hardware and then only having a low bandwidth was normal.

What did the first web designs look like back then and what were the most popular design trends?
Here are the most important, iconic designs of the 90s

• A certain design aspect is particularly associated with the 90s: Skeuomorphism.

This refers to a design technique in which real objects and materials are digitally recreated. This design makes the user interface of a website or app appear more real and look like an actual interface. However, this has no effect on functionality.
This technology is now being criticized, as it does not always make sense to recreate real things digitally. The boundaries of the analog world are transferred to the virtual world through skeuomorphism and user interfaces often become very inflexible in terms of further development.
A prominent representative at the time was the company Apple, which used this style in its iOS operating system up to version 7. They then changed the visual style to flat design. The many small, realistic details thus disappeared.

• Content overload

Fixed widths were still a thing of the future in the 90s. The pages were full to bursting with columns of text in different buty colors. Today, nobody would bother to read everything if there was too much text on the website.
Websites reminiscent of brochures - a true classic of the 90s. Overloaded with images and text - anyone who comes across such a brochure-like website today has a visit time of less than a second. The completely overloaded page quickly scares away every visitor.

• Animations upon animations

- until you feel sick.
Circles, buttons and much more saved as GIFs and used on the web. The GIF trend years were probably the 90s. Even worse than individual elements, entire backgrounds with repeating GIFs were used back then. An eye-catcher back then - an eye sore today.
A bit of glitter, flames or other movements or decorations - we all still remember the animated cursor.

• Counters & guest books

If there's one thing that characterizes the web design of the 90s, it's counters and guest books.
From weather displays to visitor counters, everything was represented and an integral part.
For whatever reason, we apparently used to think that websites had to be on a par with hotels. That's why guest books were mandatory on the website.
What today is simply called a comment field used to be a guestbook. Back then, people took plenty of time to write an extensive guestbook entry. Today, however, the comment boxes are overflowing with pointless and unconstructive entries.

Turning old into new

Retro is currently in again. The 90s are coming back to life and awakening nostalgic emotions. These emotions can be captured today and packaged with a modern interface combined with sophisticated UX - even for the new generations, because retro is just as interesting for them as it is for the older generations who associate nostalgic emotions with it.

Harnessing the appeal of 90s nostalgia does not mean reconstructing a clunky, overloaded interface. Because nobody wants that. Instead, certain 90s elements can be combined with modern elements. In this way, we can evoke the emotions of that time and still remain modern.
Sometimes you can also learn certain things by looking back into the past and, above all, spark creativity.