In this thread, I want to run through a few of my highlights from exploring Wayback Machine, where I dug out snapshots of the Nothing.tech URL, from its creation, to now, one year on. What I love, looking back across these moments, is how each stage/clue all contributed to our idea of what Nothing was becoming - it felt like a portal into the brain of the Nothing team.
October 31st 2020
Our first snapshot takes us back to October 2020. The website at this time is presumably still in development and we’re redirected immediately to https://nothing.tech/password. Here we’re met with a black page and a Matrix GIF in the centre: Neo, emerging from his bath of goo, along with a text element below that reads: “We need less.” in a now-familiar Rubik font.
This is a comparison, I think, to the world in which Carl and co. believe we’re living in today and the construct that Nothing is attempting to challenge … perhaps “We need less.” was an early crack at a tagline for the brand … What do you guys think?
January 26th 2021
A couple of months later, we are able to visit Nothing.tech without redirection and are met with its first use of the Ndot type that @Dominic dissected for us before. The background colour is the now familiar dark grey, rather than black, and the words “COMING SOON” slowly appear dot-by-dot, though, at this stage, there is nothing else to see.
January 27th 2021
One day later, Nothing.tech reveals itself for the first time, and we’re met with a (now broken) full-screen video. Closing the video, we see the Nothing logo, social links and various quotes from the early big-name investors. Finally, the curious ones that made it here are able to join a mailing list for the first time.
February 9th 2021
Early into February, we’re still met with the same website as above, though a new button has appeared which, when clicked, reveals a website that we’re all probably quite familiar with:
There were plenty of small changes to this rendition in terms of content and arrangement, but far too many to describe in any detail, hence why I’ll now be skipping ahead nearly 6 months …
July 27th 2021
A big day for Carl and the team. The launch event countdown hits zero, and a new rendition of the website is revealed - a clinically clean new look with unmistakable similarities to teenage.engineering. The red, white and blue accent colours that are by now synonymous with the Nothing brand, are used sparingly as a far more industrial look is embraced.
I must admit, having run through the website’s progression, I am a little nostalgic for the original design; I liked the cohesion it had with the Community Forum, the investors’ merch and the early social media assets. I can, though, see why a change was necessary, with the new cleaner look invoking the initial ‘we need less.’, coming full circle from the website’s beginning to the introduction of Nothing’s first product.
I would love to hear what you think about how the website has evolved, especially now being able to look back at those first titbits knowing what we know now.
