I have to admit that I was excited with anticipation for Rob Ford’s “Web Design: The Evolution of the Digital World 1990-Today” from TASCHEN.
The book pretty much, as the title says, the evolution of the digital world.
Rob Ford is the creator of the FWA (Favourite Website Awards) in May 2000 and judged many of the world’s top awards for web designs.
So, with that being said, this comes from a perspective from a person who designs for the web but also judges websites that won awards and there are web designers who strive to create a quality website to be recognized and be awarded.
I spent a chunk of my life as a web designer and even going so far before that before the Internet, of designing for BBS (yes, the old Wildcat and VBBS years). I was a senior web services manager designing for many newspaper companies in the West Coast and also designed various websites for celebrities and well-known talents in my young adult life.
But I have to admit, after finishing the book, it wasn’t the book that I was expecting and I felt a bit let down.
I do believe the book is subjective. If you were a web designer who appreciates design evolution and technology and strived for recognition, this book is for you.
If you are looking for true history or interviews with web designers, then this book may not be for you.
I was hoping to see the beginnings of the digital movement, as mentioned, my earlier years were designing for BBS prior to the Internet using ASCII, then RIP and eventually to HTML. There was no mention of this timeline which many used to communicate and download files way back during the 1200/2400 baud modem years.
But I would let that fly, because perhaps the focus was on Internet and maybe before the author’s time.
But even then, the discussion was quite sparse for design in the ’90s. There were also quite a few key things that I was hoping to see that I didn’t.
For example, in the early ’90s, Yahoo! was one of the biggest names in the earlier years of the World Wide Web.
Japan had a big part in the earlier years of the Internet, from music companies to anime-related companies, I remember how Avex Entertainment really went all out in showcasing producer Komuro Tetsuya’s Internet plans and it was on every music CD and people can access it via on their computer CD-Rom.
The book does delve into Flash.
I designed my first Macromedia Flash site back in 1996 based on a popular Hong Kong actress and while I made a Flash ping pong game and used it for a few years, the software would quickly become a major disdain for me and the fact so much of the sites presented in the book featured Flash-based design, I felt the true joy was when it reached to 2010 and the book mentioned the death of Flash.
There are websites and even designers featured that I did like.
But to be truthful, a book on “web design”, this is a book about web design. It does go through the evolution of it. But I guess it is quite subjective of what you expect from it.
For me, I wanted to read more about the history along with design, the goals driven by the person or team creating the site of how it changed from one year to the next. What went into the planning and was it design over function, simplicity vs. design for the end user? I guess if there were longer interviews featured for designers, this book would have made my day.
So, many sites featured, but it would have been great if the designers had a chance to elaborate on what they were trying to accomplish and why. Especially in the earlier years as people used lower speed modems and speed was always a concern.
Also, not just on the big company side but those who created websites, didn’t have much money but how they went on to create certain sites that would have a great following. I’m not talking about Drudge Report who were mentioned on the book but had a bad design despite having a ton of visitors.
I’m much older and while web designing is no longer my focus, I do read a lot of TASCHEN books and may it be of an artist, a supermodel, a photographer, an architect, I supposed I have been spoiled by reading of history and about the actual work. So, I guess I got into this TASCHEN book expecting the same.
It’s important to note that part of the book’s bulk is because it’s multilingual and features the text in English and in Deutch and Francais.
I do give credit to Rob Ford for creating this book, as there is really nothing like it in the market. And as a judge of various website designs and what FWA has managed to do over the last two decades, this book is an extension of Ford’s work.
As many people shift towards perusing sites may it be through their computers, their phones, video game consoles, TV’s and now as we are in the early stages of the Metaverse, it’s going to be interesting to see this digital evolution continue.
Again, it’s all subjective of how one appreciates this book. I suppose I was expecting more, after all it is a TASCHEN book, but for the price this book goes for when it’s on sale, Rob Ford’s “Web Design: The Evolution of the Digital World 1990-Today” may be worth checking out!
