The Mortal Web

This project stemmed from the simple idea of a website that changes over time. My initial concept, as seen below, was a stylized, interactive medieval jousting match. Feedback from my professor and peers stressed that the change was not distinct enough, and that the idea was too concerned with visuals over concept too early on.

I found this feedback very constructive, and reimagined how a website could shift temporally. I began thinking about aging as an indicator of the passage of time. What would it mean for a website to age? I sought to answer this question by making a website that progressively degrades day by day.

I thought the degradation could be less obvious and more conceptual; aging in the sense that the website's aesthetic age gets goes back in eras. Each day would highlight an era of web design's visual conventions—whether that be buttons, fonts, colors, decorative elements, or technical limitations.

To make the site feel more alive (or more dying?) I superimposed a massive, looming countdown over the entirety of the screen. The countdown is a constant reminder that the site will change every day, warning the user of its own demise as it gets progressively more primitive and defunct.

To allow the user to explore the whole site without waiting a week (7 total states), I added a "time travel" function to each page that would transition to the following day.