Posted by Nike’s Website (1998-2012)
The company Nike has had a huge impact on the athletic community for many years and has grown as a brand in various ways. Not only have the products evolved, the website has faced many design changes within the years of 1998 and 2012. This company has developed the web design in ways that will help appeal more for the consumers and help the brand become more successful. Different design techniques have been implemented throughout the years and can be viewed through the website Way Back Machine. Specifically, when viewing the 1998 web design of Nike, the images and information show a sense of community and resemble a campaign advertisement. As for 2012, the website is more product focused but still displays the community aspect. This demonstrates the brand trying to grow and become appealing to consumers in the 1990s. And once the brand achieved that, it focused more on selling the products in the 2000s.
The Nike website in the late 1990s had many unique characteristics and was appealing to a variety of people. The website wanted the consumers to feel as if anyone was an athlete and helped convey this through the images and different texts. This sense of inclusivity helped appeal to more consumers and create this sense of community for the brand. Within 1998, some web designs displayed professional athletes, inspirational texts, and many other types of features. One specific web design in 1998 is presented as a campaign for female athletes.
This web design was seen in July of 1998. It is specifically directed towards females as it mentions at the bottom of the image that the “products engineered specifically for women athletes”. This demonstrates trying to grow the community, that way more females feel connected to the brand and will want to wear it while playing sports. This web design is geared to get people to interact with the brand and develop an understanding of the brands purpose. This design does not show a variety of products and hyperlinks to the product like the current website does. Rather, the web design provides some of the general and classic footwear that the company sells. This design also shows an inspirational appeal. It allows for the consumers to feel a part of the athletic community and help them feel a sense of motivation from the brand. This design enforces the brands sense of culture and how the brand wants to separate itself from the competitors by building this distinguished culture and community.
The web design’s seen in the late 1990s demonstrated Nike’s want of creating a strong based community and demonstrating what the brand was all about. Over the years, the website faced many changes but the values of the company remained the same.
This is the Nike web design from November 2012. The first photo is the main design of the website. It shows the promotion of a specific product and provides the inspirational text to match the brands’ purpose. This design displays the various products and modern technologies that the company is using. As one would scroll down the cover page, they would then come across the second photo which displays the Nike community. This demonstrates how Nike has been able to grow this community over the years and has a variety of people involved. The web design shows how the company wants to promote specific products first and then show off the community and purpose of the brand. There is less of the campaign style web design and more of the product focused aspects. The company is aware of the strong community base so now the web design’s main goal is to develop and sell the products. The website’s focus of community still appears; it just is not the first thing the consumers will see.
The web designs from 1998 to 2012 have many distinguishing features. The images of the products have better clarity, the website is more organized and many other advancements appear in the website by 2012. However, the web design is consistent with displaying the company’s goals and purposes. Both web designs display the products, but more importantly display the Nike community and wanting to be an inclusive brand for all athletes. The design shows how the Nike culture is greater than any other athleisure brand. Nike’s culture and community has always been valued and is evident when viewing the web designs despite the year.
Sources:
“Nike Archive.” Wayback Machine. Internet Archive, July 13, 1998. https://web.archive.org/web/19980713012608/http://nike.com/womens/.
“Nike. Just Do It.” Wayback Machine. Internet Archive, November 30, 2012. https://web.archive.org/web/20121130072350/http://www.nike.com/us/en_us/.