Is it just nostalgia or were the website designs from the 2000s more unique, playful and with character? Responsive design and mobile web are a necessity, but I feel like they annihilated all creativity in web design.
The “standards” where not there, so all websites had to make things custom. I remember my wife making custom buttons for hers back in the day. It was so awesome.
I’ve seen some neocities sites, they are pretty cool.
I just wish some of the larger websites (gaming or otherwise) would make something similar for their desktop website and make a simple (non-responsive) mobile version.
They were more unique and creative. Were they functional? Ehhh not always. But i still love it and with modern implementation id like to see more of it. It doesnt have to be dated. It can just be a creative difference. Not every single site has to use js and look like the 3 websites 99% of normies use.
Take baccyflap.com. I love this site and see no issues at all with it. Most people under 30 would run away screaming from this site (hyperbole) because they are conditioned by x, fb, and the tok.
I fondly remember checking up on the different planet sites, like planethalflife to check up on the mods that would get released all the time. Good times indeed!
Damn, talk about coincidence. Just 5 minutes before looking at this here thread, I was looking at a forum thread from 2003 about Die Gilde (German economy simulation/city builder.)
The King of Fighters. This fighting game series still has some of the original marketing sites up for its earlier
titles.
KOF 98 "Unlimited Match". I’m not sure when this was made. This is for the 2008 re-release of KOF 98. The copyright date says 2007 and there’s a Wordpress logo for the favicon. However, everything else about the website screams <marquee>"1998."</marquee> It’s using tables for the layout and font tags for text colors. I’m wondering if there was an existing site for KOF 98, and they gave it an update for 2008 without changing the way it was written.
KOF 2000. A great example of how a site would sometimes have completely different layouts for each page.
webdesignmuseum.org
Najstarsze