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I have been fighting for years to get people used to "90s aesthetics." Then again, I think (bitmap) aliased fonts, bitmap gif patterns, classic bitmap icons (su

by jd3 10y ago

I have been fighting for years to get people used to "90s aesthetics." Then again, I think (bitmap) aliased fonts, bitmap gif patterns, classic bitmap icons (susan kare, early KDE, IRIX, BeOS, Plan9, Mac OS 9, etc.), Netscape, CDE etc. were all incredibly beautiful. I have railed against complexity since as early as I can remember. It's even more important for web design. Give me simple HTML with a touch of css, and javascript only if it's absolutely necessary. I can think of hardly any websites that I would consider "beautiful" these days for exactly this reason. http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm http://www.webdirections.org/blog/the-website-obesity-crisis/ http://www.webdirections.org/blog/the-website-obesity-crisis... PS: I'm not sure I would classify these sites as brutalist; perhaps 'utilitarian' or 'functional' would be better descriptors.

chezhead 10y ago
If youth trends are any indication, the 90s are officially a "retro" aesthetic now for those of us that spend too much time on tumblr, 4chan, and all that. While it all isn't classified as "vaporwave", the entire 'windows 95'/purple-pink pastels/tron-grid/gifs is seeping into media. I can pull up some examples if anyone's interested. A lot of websites we're making nowadays are HTML/CSS with a touch of javascript out of necessity since nobody wants to just use some wordpress template or have it look like every other AngularJS webapp. It might just be the particular sort of sites I stumble upon or my strict adblocking though. But I'm not sure it could ever be fully 'mainstream' since there's enough people (particularly older) that need big buttons and familiar design to browse the web. But for smaller sites that cater to generally younger people, it could take this direction. Only time will tell! PS: I agree that it really isn't brutalist, but there really should be a better word to describe this sort of aesthetic.
kbenson 10y ago
Oh, that idlewords.com talk is wonderful. And at just under a megabyte thin, a step in the right direction. ;) ... I began by replacing the image carousels with pictures of William Howard Taft, America's greatest president by volume.

by jd3 10y ago

chezhead 10y ago

If youth trends are any indication, the 90s are officially a "retro" aesthetic now for those of us that spend too much time on tumblr, 4chan, and all that. While it all isn't classified as "vaporwave", the entire 'windows 95'/purple-pink pastels/tron-grid/gifs is seeping into media. I can pull up some examples if anyone's interested. A lot of websites we're making nowadays are HTML/CSS with a touch of javascript out of necessity since nobody wants to just use some wordpress template or have it look like every other AngularJS webapp. It might just be the particular sort of sites I stumble upon or my strict adblocking though. But I'm not sure it could ever be fully 'mainstream' since there's enough people (particularly older) that need big buttons and familiar design to browse the web. But for smaller sites that cater to generally younger people, it could take this direction. Only time will tell! PS: I agree that it really isn't brutalist, but there really should be a better word to describe this sort of aesthetic.

kbenson 10y ago

Oh, that idlewords.com talk is wonderful. And at just under a megabyte thin, a step in the right direction. ;) ... I began by replacing the image carousels with pictures of William Howard Taft, America's greatest president by volume.