Web design
through the ages

All eras

1. 011978–1995BBS, terminals & pre-web systemsBefore the web, people dialled into bulletin board systems: 80 columns of text, 16 colours, ANSI art logos and menus you drove with single keystrokes.
2. 021991–1995Early hypertextThe first web pages had no design at all: authors wrote headings, paragraphs, lists and links, and the browser decided how they looked: grey page, black Times, blue underlined links.
3. 031995–2000Personal homepagesFree hosting turned everyone into a webmaster: tiled star backgrounds, Comic Sans, hit counters, guestbooks, webrings and an “under construction” sign that never came down.
4. 041996–2003Table layouts & portalsDesigners bent HTML tables into page grids: sliced header images, spacer GIFs, image rollovers and dense three-column portals squeezed into 760 pixels for an 800×600 screen.
5. 051997–2009Flash & splash introsMacromedia Flash turned web pages into fixed-size stages: preloaders, skippable splash intros, swooshing menus, pixel fonts, sound effects and navigation you had to discover by hovering.
6. 061998–2003Y2K chrome & futurismAt the turn of the millennium the web went shiny: brushed-chrome logos, blobby gel buttons, translucent candy-coloured plastic, lens flares, bubbles and an "e-" in front of everything.
7. 072001–2007Web standards & CSS layoutsDesigners threw out layout tables and proved one clean XHTML document could wear completely different designs, using nothing but floats, clever background images and a stylesheet.
8. 082003–2008Blogs & MySpaceAnyone could publish: hosted blogs gave everyone dated posts, permalinks and a sidebar, while social profiles let millions of teenagers paste raw CSS into an "About me" box.
9. 092005–2009Web 2.0 glossThe web became an app platform: perpetually beta startups with glossy pill buttons, wet-floor logos, tag clouds and pages that updated themselves with Ajax.
10. 102007–2013Skeuomorphism & textureWhen touchscreens arrived, interfaces borrowed the look of real objects so people knew what to tap: stitched leather, torn paper, brass switches and glossy app icons.
11. 112010–2015Responsive & grid frameworksSmartphones made fixed 960px layouts obsolete. Fluid grids, flexible images and media queries let one site reflow for every screen, and grid frameworks made it the default.
12. 122012–2016Flat & MetroInterfaces dropped the leather and gloss for solid colour, thin type and tiles. Inspired by transit signage and Swiss typography, “flat” made content the interface.
13. 132012–2017Parallax & one-page storytellingLong single pages told a story as you scrolled: layered scenes moving at different speeds, full-screen heroes, giant type and a sticky nav that tracked your chapter.
14. 142014–2019Material DesignGoogle asked what digital paper would be like if it obeyed light and physics: sheets at measured heights casting real shadows, ink that spread from your fingertip, and a single bold accent colour on a floating button.
15. 152016–2024Brutalism & neubrutalismA reaction to templated flat design: first raw, default-stylesheet pages that showed their seams on purpose, then a friendlier neubrutalism of thick black outlines, hard shadows and loud flat colour.
16. 162018–2023Gradients, glass & soft UIAfter years of flat colour, gradients came back as glowing blobs behind frosted-glass panels, soft extruded "neumorphic" controls had a moment on Dribbble, and every app grew a dark mode.
17. 172023–2026Bento & scroll-driven (now)Today’s product page: a bento box of rounded tiles, giant kinetic type, and motion and layout that once needed JavaScript, now done in CSS with scroll timelines, container queries, :has() and view transitions.