The Museum of Lost Icons
Like any other medium, the web has its phases, fads and fancies. One of those was - in the early 90s - a great love of representational icons for navigation. Here are some that we saved from the cutting bin...
When the world wide web was young, Javascript rollovers were just a rumour, and cascading stylesheets had certainly not even been defined, web designers had to wrestle with the knotty problem of providing distinctive navigation structures for sites. At the time, the most obvious model available was that provided by stand-alone computer software such as Windows - the 'representational' icon.
Never mind that these minipics were usually patronising when they weren't being enigmatic (and therefore had to be supplemented by text in any case), they were part of the expectations of clients and designers alike, because they mirrored the sort of things that both saw on their computer's desktop.
But, having said all that, it was a challenge to knock out these miniatures, sometimes pixel-by-pixel, and we are not too ashamed of the effort we put in at the time. So here are five sets (no longer in use on their original sites) that we created back then. As an exercise in semiotics you can try to guess what they meant (some, of course, are obvious - we certainly liked that pillar box).
Incidentally, since these five sets are in chronological sequence, an evolution away from the standard grey faux-3D bevelled button is discernable. But the last set - where the text actually becomes part of the icon - were never actually deployed (which is why they look so rough). Rollovers were now available, and we just used text. And so things are now, where most navigation is textual, supplemented - where extra fireworks are needed - by deft use of Javascript/DHTML. Sensible, sure, but not always as much fun.
(And if some of the above show jaggy edges, it's because they were not intended for a white page background - but the then-vogue for page backgrounds is a whole other issue...)
