About RetroToNeo

From 1990s GeoCities to 2026+ Adaptive AI — A living, interactive showcase of web design history.

What is RetroToNeo?

RetroToNeo is an interactive museum and living chronicle of web design evolution. Explore how the web looked, felt, and behaved across every major era—from raw 90s HTML and GeoCities pages to Material Design, glassmorphism, and 2026+ adaptive AI interfaces.

It is organised into 21 design eras, a museum of 126 exhibits, a glossary of 13 terms and immersive experiences. Each era is also a site-wide theme: switching to it restyles RetroToNeo itself, so the interface you browse with changes along with the history you are reading.

21 eras of web design

Every era page covers its historical background, timeline, major companies and products, key visual characteristics, why it became popular, why it declined, what replaced it and its legacy. Start from the design history timeline or open an era directly:

  1. Early Web / GeoCities (1995–2001)
  2. Pixel Web (1997–2005)
  3. Y2K Aesthetic (1998–2005)
  4. Skeuomorphic Early Web (2001–2007)
  5. Frutiger Aero (2004–2013)
  6. Web 2.0 Glossy (2005–2010)
  7. Flat Design (2012–2017)
  8. Vaporwave (2012–2018)
  9. Material Design (2014–Present)
  10. Brutalist Web Design (2014–2021)
  11. Minimalism (2015–Present)
  12. Corporate Memphis (2017–2023)
  13. Cyberpunk UI (2018–Present)
  14. Acid Graphics / Anti-Design (2018–Present)
  15. Neumorphism (2019–2021)
  16. Glassmorphism (2020–2022)
  17. Neo-Brutalism (2020–Present)
  18. Claymorphism (2021–2024)
  19. Aurora / Gradient Mesh (2021–Present)
  20. AI-first / Bento UI (2023–Present)
  21. Adaptive AI UI (2025–Present)

The museum collection

Each era has its own design museum — 126 exhibits in total. Every exhibit documents a real interface, product or technique with a caption, a historical note and a breakdown of the design techniques it uses, and has its own page you can link to.

Glossary

The web design glossary defines 13 key terms and links each one to the eras it belongs to.

Immersive experiences

Leave the museum gallery and boot into a full late-2000s techno-optimistic desktop — complete with Aero Glass windows, lush nature wallpapers, and nostalgic UI chrome from the height of glossy optimism.

  • A full Windows 7 Aero desktop with glass windows and nature wallpapers
  • Glass taskbars, live-style window chrome, and period-accurate sounds
  • Explorable apps, wallpapers, and Frutiger-era interface details

Step Into the Frutiger Aero Desktop

Get in touch

Questions or corrections? Use the contact page.