Elements of UGLY Web Design – Navigation Animated Gifs

October 5, 2008 by Paul Andrew Web Design

Of course you will remember them, they were that horrible, badly designed navigation icons you seen everywhere on the internet. That was the days when graphic design and web design were so far apart that every site you turned to looked ugly, and they were made worse by those little blinking, color blind images that were trying to point you in the right direction.
Of course, I used them as well (it felt a little nostalgic collecting the gifs).

Elements of UGLY Web Design: 1. Navigation Animated Gifs.

I wouldn’t exactly call this a showcase, maybe a line up. Anyway, have a look at these gifs from a now bygone era. Thankfully.

Internet Explorer and Netscape Animated GIFs my favourites

Homepage Animated GIFs

Email or Contact Animated GIFs

Download Animated GIFs

Statistics Animated GIFs

Under Construction Animated GIFs

Seperator / Lines / Breaks Animated GIFs

Arrows Animated GIFs

Animated Text GIFs

Next Week: Elements of UGLY Web Design: 2. Inline Frames.

http://www.paulsibley.net/ …paul

I can remember all too well using some of those, or very much like them. It has to be said, they look so much worse all bunched up together like that. Thankfully web design has moved on a lot since they were prolific around the internet.
Rokurosv

The flag separator is probably the worst, tied with the “colorful” Updated!.
http://www.se7enize.com SE7EN

lol. such nostalgia
http://www.heteilandneus.be Wannes Daemen

This is worse than a horror movie. It stills surprises me how many clients ask for this kind of shit on their website…
http://wp-premiums.com PJ

What a ghastly collection, but perfect for the Halloween season.
http://www.higherweb.fr/le_blog gaetan

“Ouille, Ouille”…
I’am loosing my eyes

Sorry i close the windows ;-)
http://www.jsbwebdesign.com Joe

I want to personally thank you for the seizure.
http://www.gethirefly.com/welcome Catherine Markel

Still very popular in MySpace comment sections!
Laurence

They are pretty psychedelic when listening to the prodigy!
D

Hmm, I think I may use some of these for my website…. ;)
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http://www.tur0.com Alper

But,about before 5 years,these gif were very fashinable.Now,Web 2.0 buttons are fashinable.Thanks for content.
http://jopil.com joomla

thank you
Bill

Um…what about the blinking, jiggling classmates.com ad at the top of this page?
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BojanP

Ah.. Brings back the memories. So 1996.
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http://www.hatchmedia.co.uk web design manchester

The birth of epilepsy..!
What was we thinking
Des

oh what a headache. Thankfully those days for most of us are over.
Crystal

It’s like that client who INSISTS the graphic they created in word is AWESOME and wants it on their site. I hide in shame and deny I even touched the site >:( Actually, I still think I receive these in an email here and there. :S
http://budurl.com/vvbp Rahul

I can remember myself also using some of them during my early days of web design. ;)

lol
http://www.RedesignYourBiz.com Designer

i absolutely hate these icons
http://www.RedesignYourBiz.com Designer

can never even imagine to use such icons on my website
shawn

feels like internet way back 1994
http://www.flashreseller.com/ Kate

Still a lot of such (or little bit less ugly) animated (of flash) stuff on websites. Especially if it’s some ppc ads. Irritating! Blinking and blinking “press here” or “you won 100000$”
http://www.wegif.com/browse/ weGif

It will be good to have a gif animation software like what is being suggested by Photo Animation Software
http://www.thegooglegurus.co.uk Web Design Bolton

Those are all absolutely awful! Thankfully they’re pretty much a thing of the past now, however I personally wouldn’t put my name to any work I had done for a client if they asked for any of these kind of animations on their sites!
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