Many of us have been using the internet for 20+ years and over those years we’ve seen the internet grow. Websites have become cleaner and more aesthetically pleasing and load times have decreased to mere seconds. But sometimes we forget what the internet looked like and how different it is from today. That’s where the Version Museum comes in.
The Version Museum aims to catalog the visual evolution of some of the worlds most popular websites. It’s interesting to look back at what Amazon looked like in 1995 and what Google appeared like in 1998. This new website is still in the growing stages and is working to populate the site with more content but what they have is a good start.
Version Museum showcases the visual history of popular websites and games that have shaped our lives. Much like walking through a real-life museum, this site focuses on the changes in the design of historic versions of technology, rather than just the written history behind it.
This site displays images of a given topic in (mostly) chronological order, starting from the earliest time feasible. All the images are credited when possible. We search for images from the original time period and use them if they are available. Unfortunately, many of these old images are of poor quality and resolution, and end up looking awful on high-quality modern displays.
They’re even including the history of some of the world’s most popular games such as Grand Theft Auto. It’s an interesting concept for a website, basically using screenshots from the Wayback MachineWayback Machine and organizing and consolidating them into an easy to digest UI. Just for the fun of it, I’ve included a screenshot below of what our very first web design looked like.
It’s an interesting idea for a website and so far it’s looking pretty good. It’ll probably take a bit more time to really get a good bulk of content there but the Version Museum is working on it. Be sure to check them out!
What do you think of this new website about the visual history of websites? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter, or Facebook. You can also comment on our MeWe page by joining the MeWe social network.
Last Updated on February 3, 2021.
