Splash pages?
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- omahadesigns
Why were splash pages ever a thing?
I remember sites that had their logo, then you click that and it goes to the main site or more annoyingly opens the main site in a new window.
Was this trying to make it more like a book? No one makes them anymore and looking back its like it was never a good idea.
- detritus0
Pre-loaders.
- animatedgif0
People wanted to display some Flash animation but the actual site had no real reason to have it.
- utopian0
At the time... Bandwidth was a premium.
- uan0
^^^ remember the lowsrc attribute on images
- fadein110
Print designers moving over to web - they were still in brochure cover mindset
- ESKEMA0
Clients still ask for them from time to time, I keep a trout next to me all the time just because of this, then I proceed to slap them in the face with it. Works every time.
- fyoucher10
Because animation in the web was new. Well, the web was new in general. They were more of a site entrance, trying to bring a wow factor in. Probably done because that's how it was being done in Director/Authorware for DVD's or software-based training discs when you first opened those kinda presentations (those were the two big pieces of software at the time). It wasn't a good idea, not for everything at least (makes sense for some sites that are more presentational than for content). Live and learn I guess...
- But you couldn't tell me that Debauer.de site with the 2 minute intro wasn't dope...at the time.fyoucher1
- And eye4u.com was the trend-setterfyoucher1
- Dabuer was pretty slick. There were a bunch that would still look pretty slick these days...but now that Jobs killed Flash, we will have to wait another 10 yearsformed
- but now that Jobs killed Flash, we will have to wait another 10 years for some interesting interactionformed
- formed0
We'll see them again. As "html5" becomes more common place, there will be more and more image/animation intensive pages. Already, there are preloaders going on image driven sites, which are no more annoying than a splash page.
Also, a splash page introduces a the identity/brand, so a single image/logo/ sentence can be seen, recognized and more memorable the the extremely annoying and rampant proliferation of WordPress-looking blogs (enough already with the slideshow at top, 3 columns and a billion tags/links at the bottom! I'll take a splash page and creative intro any day).
Hopefully things will evolve, there's some nice minimalist work out there (though they might as well have a splash page, it is just integrated into the main site vs. a separate pop-up/window, which was annoying).
- lessfloor0
also it was the closest thing to video at the time and had the wow effect untill it was like let me in already, ahh damn it crash my browser
- dbloc0
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