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Dole/Kemp '96 Online Campaign

dolekemp96.org

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Re: Dole/Kemp '96 Online Campaign

#21

Post by sequoia »

from the commercials page ( http://www.dolekemp96.org/news/commercials/commercials.html ), in reference to the bad Clinton economy that Dole would fix:

    Two incomes needed to make ends meet.
Not sure whether to laugh or to cry, thinking that just a while ago a politician called attention to this as though it were a fixable problem...were things really so different 16 years ago?

Re: Dole/Kemp '96 Online Campaign

#23

Post by MatthewPhillips »

I wish sites were still designed this way. Not the animated gifs or the font size 1, but the fact that once the site is loaded, it's completely done. And if I refresh the page, or bookmark the link and come back later, I'm going to see the exact same page. According to the Chrome developer tools the page took 2ms to render and 4ms to paint.

I write JavaScript professionally but not all web sites need JavaScript, in fact most do not. Compare this site with a random page from the ReadWrite's new design[1] which doesn't even load its initial content until after the page has loaded (!) and gives 50% of its x axis to ads and links to other unrelated pages on the site (which contain more ads of course).

I don't want informational websites to continue to load stuff a second or five seconds after the page has loaded. I don't want them to load new content when my mouse floats over a div. I don't want a sitemap that is omnipresent as I scroll down an article.

I'm a big fan of the Contrast Rebellion[2] and kind of feel like something in the same spirit is needed for static websites. I miss the non-interactive web.

[1]http://readwrite.com/2012/11/14/if-foxconn-replaced-its-huma... [2]http://contrastrebellion.com/

Re: Dole/Kemp '96 Online Campaign

#24

Post by rangibaby »

This is quite nice for a 1996 website. I guess it shows how much the development of (nice) web design was held back by a combination of the ~2000 flashpocalypse and IE6.

I felt quite nostalgic looking at the designs from this era: http://www.4president.us/2000websites.htm

Luckily, there is a certain font present that will stop you from feeling too sentimental. :-)

Re: Dole/Kemp '96 Online Campaign

#28

Post by atsaloli »

Maakuth wrote: post #13
RyanMcGreal wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking it holds up quite well, compared to my subjective memory of websites from that vintage. There are no scrolling banners or other dancing garbage (with the exception of one animated GIF that is relatively restrained), and the layout wouldn't look out of place today if the elements had a bit more room to breathe. Even the markup is surprisingly clean: * Most tag names are lowercase * Attributes are double…

The tightness of the layout probably stems from low resolution screens. In '96 the most typical display size was something around 640x480 or 800x600, not a lot of room to breathe there.

In the last month, I've had 2 people tell me (unsolicited of course) that my website looks like it was made 10 years ago.

I went to this 1996 campaign site and said with dismay, it looks like my website.

I recognized many of of the above historical attributes (table-based layout, centered narrow, body bgcolor attribute) in my own site.

I've got a full-time job as a UNIX system administrator, and a part-time business training sys admins. I don't have the website redesign merit badge or time to earn one. I'd pay for a redesign but I don't even know what to ask for except "a website that presents my company well". And I want people to stop staring at my website like there is something wrong with it.

Would appreciate any help you can offer, either by recommending a designer or a design, please.

Re: Dole/Kemp '96 Online Campaign

#30

Post by danso »

I was going to ask: "so how is it that the average non-commercial site can be expected to crash upon reaching ten HN upvotes but this 1996 is still chugging along strong" After all, this was well before such thing as CDNs were in wide use.

Then I looked at the source and saw that it's a Frontpage site.

* This brings back memories of when you could get at least $50/hr to make something like this.

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