Although this article references the 90's, it reminded me of the truly vibrant web design scene of the early 2000's. I was a graphic design (print work back then) student / early in my career at the time. Sites like k10k, Newstoday, Praystation, and many others jump-started my interest in writing software by way of web design. Flash especially.

There was a network of sites (like those mentioned above), that had feeds of interesting work done on the web. Much of it was purely an exercise in creativity. The single 1024x768 resolution target let folks go wild without the constraints of responsiveness that we see today.

While I realize that the web had to evolve, I have a lot of nostalgia for web design from those days. The "design" part of it was really centered around artistic expression, and still had a lot of influence from graphic design.