Old Web — aesthetic.fyi

► What This Is

The old web aesthetic is a love letter to the internet of 1995–2001, when personal homepages lived on GeoCities, Angelfire, and Tripod. Every page was a declaration of identity — cluttered with animated GIFs, visitor counters, guestbook links, and "under construction" signs. There were no design systems, no component libraries, no best practices. There was just HTML, a dream, and a 28.8k modem.

The beauty of old web design is its sincerity. Nobody was optimizing for conversion. Nobody was A/B testing button colors. People built pages because they had something to say, or something to share, or just because they could. The result was chaotic, garish, and deeply human — the exact opposite of the sanitized, corporate web we live on today.

► Characteristics

Neon on Navy

Bright lime green, cyan, yellow, and magenta text on deep navy blue or black backgrounds. High contrast, zero subtlety. Text-shadow glow effects make everything feel like a neon sign in a digital void.

Ridge and Groove Borders

Borders use the CSS ridge, groove, or inset styles — the kind of 3D beveled edges that made elements look like they were physically embedded in the page. Silver (#C0C0C0) is the border color of choice.

Tiled Backgrounds

Repeating patterns, starfields, or scanline gradients tile across the entire page. The background is never plain — it's a texture, a pattern, a statement.

Marquee and Blink

Text scrolls horizontally. Elements blink on and off. CSS animations recreate the energy of the <marquee> and <blink> tags that defined an era of the web.

Table Layouts

Content organized in rigid table-like grids with visible cell borders. No flexbox, no CSS grid philosophy — just rows and columns with thick beveled edges, like a spreadsheet wearing a party hat.

DIY Badges and Counters

Visitor counters, "Best Viewed in Netscape" badges, guestbook links, and webrings. Small decorative elements that signal community and personal ownership of digital space.

► Style Reference

Navy blue backgrounds (#000080). Bright neon text in lime green, cyan,
yellow, and magenta against dark backgrounds. Monospaced fonts everywhere
— Courier or system monospace. No border-radius. Borders use ridge,
groove, or inset styles in silver (#C0C0C0). Tiled background patterns
or repeating CSS gradients that mimic scanlines. Blinking or flashing
elements. Marquee-style horizontal scrolling text via CSS animation.
Table-based grid layouts. Visitor counter badges. "Under construction"
banners. Text-shadow glow effects in neon colors. Horizontal rules
rendered as colorful decorative separators. No whitespace discipline —
elements crowd together. GIF-energy animations. The page feels hand-built,
personal, and unapologetically chaotic.

► When to Use

☑ Good For

Retro-themed projects and nostalgia pieces
Personal homepages that reject modern polish
Game jam sites and indie game pages
Internet history exhibits and archives
Ironic or satirical corporate commentary

☒ Not For

Any professional or commercial product
Accessibility-focused projects (blinking, low contrast)
Mobile-first audiences
Content that needs to build trust or credibility

► History

The old web aesthetic isn't a designed style — it's the natural result of what happened when ordinary people got access to HTML for the first time. Between 1994 and 2001, services like GeoCities (founded 1994, acquired by Yahoo in 1999, shut down in 2009) gave millions of people free web hosting and a WYSIWYG editor. The results were glorious chaos.

Every page was a personal statement. Animated GIF collections, MIDI background music, hit counters, guestbooks, and webrings connected communities of hobbyists, fans, and dreamers. The <blink> tag (Netscape, 1994) and <marquee> tag (Internet Explorer, 1995) became symbols of the era — technically pointless, aesthetically aggressive, and beloved by millions.

As CSS matured and web standards emerged in the early 2000s, the old web style was actively rejected by professional designers. But it never truly died. The indie web movement, Neocities (founded 2013), and a growing nostalgia for pre-corporate internet have brought it back — not as a standard, but as a statement. Building an old web page today is an act of resistance against the homogenized, algorithm-driven web.