ariealt.net

vrijdag 21 januari 2004 | A decade of webdesign

Which webbrowser did you use for your first visit to the WWW?

Was it Lynx? Maybe I didn't use it for my first visit, but I kept using it at home during 1994 and 1995, maybe even later, with a 2400 baud modem and a dial-up-connection on Powerbook 100 with a 20Mb harddisk.

The first time I saw a webpage must have been in 1993. Chris Remie showed it to me in the old office-space of Willem Velthoven at the Hoogte Kadijk, Amsterdam. It sure didn't have pictures.

When did you learn to make websites?

Somewhere in 1994 (?) Willem Velthoven of Mediamatic gave me a print-out of a HTML Beginners Guide and put me behind a Mac with an internetconnection in the new Mediamatic-office at the Prins Hendrikkade in Amsterdam. At that time 3 days was enough to learn almost everything there was to learn (without getting into programming -- before Javascript).

How did you learn to make websites?

Typing code, though I remember using PageSpinner from early on. Copying and studying source code of others.

At that time (1994, 1995) you didn't have that many design-possibilities yet with HTML. Perfect for me, I'm not a designer. Typically for that time was trying to do layout by 'misusing' tags. Before tables and before &nbsp's, you even used a dot to get some extra 'white'. See: http://www.mediamatic.nl/magazine/8_1/Seijdel-Restore.html. Or, later on, assigning bigger font sizes to spaces, in order to create a larger spacing. Look at the source code of : http://www.mediamatic.nl/magazine/8_4/bilwet-concept/bilwet-1.html. Peter van de Hoogen (now of http://www.coup.nl) came up with that idea. Around that time Robin Verdegaal was the table-wizard. (Being nostalgic now...). All before CSS.

What I learned then is the basis of what I do now. I still type tags. I still use BBedit for my weblog. I know there are more advanced (and faster) tools. It suits me. But I do use stylesheets for design.

HTML is not design?

No, HTML is not design. I didn't know at that time. (Though i had read something about SGML...) In 1997 learning HTML was basically the same as learning how to design websites.

I teached a lot from 1997 up until 2002. In the beginning also HTML and design, but mostly 'History of the Internet and WWW' and the like. Strange times. In the summer (probably of 1997) I had two consecutive days of teaching. It was very warm. The first day I wore a tidy white shirt (no tie), and black long trousers. I teached for a group of designers, fresh from art school. They were wearing shorts. Next day I thought, it's so warm, I'll wear my shorts and a T-shirt. I came into the office and I see 15 people in suits. Managers of the KPN. Oops. They went around shaking the hands of everybody in the office, ignoring me. But yes, I was their first teacher of the day... Many of them complimented me afterwards for my very clear and inspiring talk. ;-)

The WWW as breaktrough-technology?

For me the WWW was a breaktrough. (Though I couldn't do without e-mail either).

Why?

1. -- from 1994 on all this information, that previously was difficult to get (in the print era), came online. (Okay, you had gopher before, and ftp, but see (4))
2. -- information became really linked.
3. -- you could link to others, others could link to you.
4. -- it was easy to publish your own stuff, make it look reasonably good, and easy to navigate.

All that is still basically what the whole 'personal publishing'-thing is about. Now start publishing...