[napoleoncomplex]

I've always wondered, what's the best looking website of the 1990s? Was there anything that people would deem as "good" as some of today's top designs?

I feel like there had to be at least someone with a very refined sense of aesthetic making awesome websites back then.

[dccoolgai]

Drudge Report. Even if you don't like the political "lean" of it (I, personally, don't), you have to appreciate a design that has (basically) stayed the same since it was founded in the mid 90s. The "minimalism" from Drudge had a big impact on a lot of modern web design.

[iomike]

trust me, drudge's minimalism didn't influence modern web design.

[dccoolgai]

There are quite a few people

http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1407-why-the-drudge-report-is...

who disagree with you

http://dailycurrant.com/2012/04/23/matt-drudge-wins-web-desi...

[meej]

daily currant is a satire site.

[xyzzyb]

At the time the web was only a couple of years old and it was yet to even hit the "lets get serious" radar of just about everyone.

Essentially, no. There was no one with a very refined aesthetic making websites at the time. Even the Louvre's website (one of the first art museum websites I remember popping up) was extremely ugly.

[wazoox]

I remember http://www.sgi.com as particularly nice in 96/97. Alas, there aren't many captures on archive.org.