Posts Tagged ‘technology’

Back when GeoCities wasn’t owned by Yahoo (and still existed, for that matter)? When frames were considered “high tech”, when it was perfectly acceptable for backgrounds to be a picture repeated over, and over, and over; and when there were animated .gifs literally everywhere?

Oh, baby.

You can actually click through this screenshot to browse through the archived site in all it's glory; thanks to the Wayback Machine.

Oh, and in case you were wondering – yeah, that was MY website.

Okay, you can stop laughing at me now – I was 12, and it was REALLY cool back then. All my friends were jealous. And then they made their own sites. And recently, I embarrassed them all by finding all THEIR old sites and plastering them all over Facebook!

Ah, the wonders of modern day technology.

I still remember my first webpages address – which is kind of odd, considering it was SO. LONG. AGO. (And so long, in general) Good thing though – that’s what allowed me to track it down via the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.

It was http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/Dell/5503, in case you were curious.

Actually, that was only my FIRST websites URL because I RAN OUT OF SPACE (seriously) and ended up having to make a second, then third, then… you get the idea.

I always feel a little silly when applying for jobs (and in interviews!) when I’m asked how many years of web design experience I have. Because when you’ve only been out of school for 2 years, and you didn’t major in ANYTHING web related, claiming 5+ years of experience – let alone 10+! – seems a little ridiculous, right?

But truth be told, I made my first webpage when I was 10/11, in 1996 (my family got our first computer in 1993, and I thought it was the coolest thing since the mechanical cheese slicer we owned - hey, I really liked cheese and was clumsy with a knife, okay?) and from then on I was hooked.

I created my first .gifs in KidPix, than – oh my God – moved on to animated .gifs.

Also in KidPix.

This frog was my second one.

Pretty badass, right?

Please note the hot white background surrounding the graphic – yeah, transparency didn’t exist yet for me.

I soon moved up in the world, and learned to work Paint Shop Pro.

Shortly after, I was making adoptable eggs that hatched into bunnies and pigs. We won’t talk about my first adoptable animals, a slew of unanimated KidPix bunnies.

And then I finally, FINALLY learned how to use transparency – no white borders here, folks.

Back then, I was sooooo proud of these graphics (and okay, you’ve got to admit – for a 12 year old in 1997 they were pretty damn good!). I wanted to be a graphic designer until I was about 15 and discovered law (surprise, I’m not a lawyer today either!). And there were a few weeks when I was 13 when I was insistant I’d be a marine biologist, until I realized I never, ever wanted to disect an animal in science class. And yes, I did avoid doing so all through high school.

Although I’m by no means a graphic artist, I do still make graphics (all the ones on this site are my work), and I dabble in some freelance graphic work when the opportunity presents itself (right now, I’m actually designing some material for Open Media’s “Vote for the Internet” campaign).

For those of you who know me (and well) – you might see parts of my “grown up” personality still splashed around that page. I still love bunnies and penguins, for instance. And if you read my “all about me” page (please note the bangin’ rainbow background), you’ll note I list my hobbies as swimming, reading, and drawing (yup, still do all those things).

Ace of Base and Spice Girls were my favourite bands, and Geri Halliwell was my favourite singer. Not sure whether I really want to admit this, but I still have music from all three (yeah, yeah, including Geri’s short lived solo career) on my iPod.

I guess something things really do never change (except technology, thank God!)

And, for a laugh, check out a few popular pages in all their frame heavy, blue underline linked glory:

• TheStar.com, circa 1996 (check out those buttons!)
• Apple.com in 1997 had a great deal: order CyberDrive today for a FREE CD Rom!
• Disney.com was high tech in 1997 with their transparent graphics, frames, and online store.
• One of the nicest layouts 1996 ever saw was probably ABC.com’s site.
• Google was still in beta form in 1996.