Posted on May 17, 2007 in Design-Showcases, with 1 comments.

Well in case I haven’t mentioned it before, I am a huge San Antonio Spurs fan. This playoff season is shaping up to be pretty good, and so while I sit here waiting impatiently for the next game to begin, I thought I’d take a stroll down memory lane.

With the help of the eternally cool Wayback Machine I will be your guide through the history of the Spurs.com website.

1998

This is the very first iteration of Spurs.com, and it looks very much the way most sites did in the late 90’s. The color scheme is actually from the Spurs’ original logo. All in all the site is actually minimalistic when compared with NBA sites of today. There are eight images all together, and just four main content blocks. The background image sports a 90’s era embossed style, and was probably not meant to be seen at 1280×960.

2000

The first major update since 1998, the redesigned site incorperated the Spurs’ main color: black. The background is changed, but I guess there wasn’t quite enough foresight to change the photo borders along with it. Also, in a move that is surprising, the main logo is replaced by a banner celebrating their previous championship, that does not link back to the home page. Also, the orange headlines that looked okay on the previous layout, completely stand out here, and clash horribly with the rest of the site’s color scheme. Speaking of the color scheme, there is a lot less of it in the 2000 version, as everything just seems more subdued.

2001

September 2001 brings a complete overhaul of the site, and the return of the very bright, very orange, and very blue color scheme that we first saw back in ’98. Right off the bat, there is a lot more content here than ever before. Just on the homepage there are more than 21 different content areas, not including 7 different ads. The orange and blue are back, and with a vengence. While the oranges aren’t all the same shade of orange, the combo does give the homepage a lot more character than any previous version. The header image is also nicely updated with a colorized photo of David Robinson. For those of you who might not have been around back then, colorization was soooo cool. The icing on the cake: the angelic, photoshop-esque lighting effect used on the logo (top left)

2002

In 2002, all the bright colors are dropped in favor of a black/silver/white scheme. For the most part, the layout is fairly the same however. One interesting note, this is the first time the vertical “San Antonio Spurs” tape on the right makes it’s appearance. It must not have gone over very well because it’s missing in 2004 and beyond.

2003

The layout is again fairly similar, but the graphics department had a way with the header. Sharp, mechanical looking lines, vector icons, and awful photo of Timmy with a yellow glow behind him.

2004

Here we definitely begin to see the emergence of a much more polished, and modern site. Black and silver are still the key colors, but a little bit of tan here and there really help with emphasis and legibility. First sightings: a slight gradient on the pop-up navigation, and a drop shadow on the content area. Also worth a note is that the site begins to feature content on the right to those running a resolution higher than 800×600.

2006

Not too much different here. Advertisements are getting a little bigger, look a little nicer, and are being fit in differing elements in the page. Different colors are creeping into the design thanks to the NBA.com incorperating internal ads.

2007

Ahh, finally, the current version of my favorite NBA team’s website. For the first time the site is designed and built for a 1024×768 resloution, and it let’s the designers fit a ton more content on just the homepage. Among other things there is a flash header with the playoffs series score, embedded video of the Spurs’ practice, 8 very nicely incorperated ads, 10 news headlines, a schedule of the entire playoff series, a handful of internal ads/banners, and a nice sized rotating picture w/ article.

Also, in another first for the website, it’s finally centered on the page, which allows for a nice whispy background image to peek through.

Conclusion

SIDE NOTE: I realize that for a site like Spurs.com, most of the design decisions and layouts are NBA-wide, and there really isn’t a Spurs homepage per-se. So while it might mirror the evolution of all the other NBA teams’ sites in most respects, it’s still darned interesting, and the Spurs are my favorite team. :)

Hopefully this gives a little perspective on how much change one website can undergo in only 9 years (just an estimate, the Wayback Machine only went back that far). I think it’s cool to see the changes the web underwent, especially in the early days. I hope you enjoyed the trip.

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