A virtual trip through the history of the world wide web
As a new book is released tracing the evolution of the internet from 1990 until today, we talk to a handful of experts to find out what’s shaped web design over the years, and where it might go next
In 1991, the first website was designed. info.cern.ch was created by British scientist Tim Berners-Lee while he was working at CERN. Originally, he created the world wide web as a way to share information between scientists in universities and institutions around the world, and info.cern.ch was simply a way to explain the project.
Visually, the website was purely functional. On a white background sat lines of Times New Roman text, with various parts hyperlinked in blue (#0000FF, to be specific). It explained what the project was about, the people involved, the software used and also information on how you could help make the web grow.
It was a no-frills approach to web design, but at this point it existed purely as an exchange of information, so who cares if it didn’t look pretty?
