Saturday, October 9, 2010

Grandpa Jim's web from the 90s

I recently updated the links on my Oklahoma Web Awards page. That page is the latest landing page for my small tribute to my grandfather, Jim Cooprider. He passed away on June 10, 2007. One of his many skills was as a graphic artist. He also liked to explore the world through the web. Around the turn of the century (that sounds weird and makes me feel old) he created some web award badges and would give them out to websites he found noteworthy.

You young 'uns may not understand the idea behind these badges. Everybody on the web gave out and collected badges back when the web was new, connections were slow, and browsers were boring. This was before the analytics of a web site were well understood. It was also before Apple's comeback and re-instantiation of elegance in design. This was even before Google got big. In this formative state, people valued badges as identification of quality.

Of course, most of the sites that my Grandpa awarded these badges to are laughably bad by today's standards of web design. However, they still have great content. Take a look around! If you happen to see one of those badges while surfing and I do not know about it, please let me know. Thanks.


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