Remember having to unplug the phone so that you could ‘dial up’ the internet? Do you remember waiting 10 mins+ for the page to load? When the internet was in its infancy limited design tools as well as the technical constrains of speed meant websites were remarkably simple.
Major brands who spend millions on their online marketing today didn’t think the internet would ‘catch on’ so focused their marketing on traditional print and television.
So here’s what some of your favorite brands and websites looked like in the 90s:
Coca-Cola
Like many websites in the 90’s coke focused their content on news with a short section ‘about’ the company. This is actually one of the more advanced websites of the 90s, you could even search the website for articles!
Apple
Your eyes aren’t deceiving you. The multi billion dollar TECH company had a website advertising the (not very successful) EMATE 300, palm pilot device. There’s also links to “QuickTime VR” which I believe was just some low res images taken from the surface of Mars. Ooooh out of this world!
BBC News
Yes the BBC was right on the cutting edge of content. It might not seem like much now but the top navigation bar made it easier for users to navigate the website and is a fundamental part of websites today.
You could even get “News in Audio” and “News in Video”.
AOL
Remember those AOL disks that were EVERYWHERE! AOL or ‘America Online’ was huge in the 1990s and pretty much dominated the internet. This snap shot from 2nd December 1996 shows links to the AOL Members Choice list of members ‘favorite websites’ this would have been important back then as search engine weren’t widely used in 1996.
McDonalds
McDonald’s website instructed users to ‘click on the golden arches’. There’s links to McWorld with the promise “Hey, it could happen”, which is rather ominous. Links to ‘Hercules’ probably refer to the 1997 Disney film Hercules, and the range of Happy Meal toys.
The 90’s called and they want their website back…
Is your website ugly? If you have a website that is looking a bit dated we can give it the facelift it needs. Or perhaps your site is loading like we’re still using dial up?
We offer bespoke web design services and we can even make your website take off with digital marketing.
