88 x 31

When the internet was a bit wackier...

For a while, it was quite common to find on websites a whole display of stamps and buttons that looked like this:

These were generally 88x31 pixels in size (hence the name) and had two main purposes:

The first was to promote one's own site and those of others. It was quite common to have an ‘affiliates’ section on your site pointing to another site (sometimes in exchange for a redirect to your own site on the third party site). At first, these affiliations took the form of simple links with text, then these thirty-one pixel high buttons appeared.

The second purpose of these buttons could also be simply aesthetic. In this case, the buttons were not redirected to any site and simply sat on the current page for visitors to enjoy. These elements can also be seen as small windows allowing the individuality of the person behind the site to be seen in fragments.

Variation: the ‘Blinkies’

In addition to these buttons, there were also small banners (generally measuring 150x20 pixels) called ‘blinkies’. As the name suggests, these elements were often animated in .GIF format and presented the site administrator's areas of interest, or, like stamps, added a little fantasy.

Ressources

• https://88x31db.com/ collection of 88x31
• https://hekate2.github.io/buttonmaker/ button generator
• https://adriansblinkiecollection.neocities.org/ blinkies collection
• https://blinkies.cafe/ générateur de blinkies