The brief

Agency sites in 2026 look alike: a large headline, a gradient, three cards, a row of client logos. OLD SCHOOL is a project brand of our group for marketing, consulting, web development and automation, and its site was made as a creative showcase with the opposite idea. It looks like a company portal from around 2001 and works like a site of today. The line on the home page puts it this way: "Everything looks 2001. Everything we actually build is for today."

The brief had two halves. The look had to be honest to the period: a real directory portal with dense pages, underlined links and badges, without fake browser frames or a modern landing page dressed in pixels. And everything on it had to work: every link, the search, the forms, the phone layout.

What we built

A portal from 2001

The site is a three-column directory portal. A status strip runs across the top with "HTTP/1.1 200 OK", "OLD SCHOOL NETWORK" and "56K FRIENDLY". The left column holds the site directory, a search box, a help desk and a webring of 88 by 31 pixel badges ("Human first", "Best viewed with curiosity", "Built to work"). Text is set in Verdana with default underlined links, blue and yellow navigation, block form controls, a scrolling welcome line, a bulletin board and a counter of visits from this browser.

The home page headline reads "The internet got smarter. Business advice didn't have to get weirder." Below it a main menu offers four departments: Marketing, Business consulting, Web and software lab, and the Automation room.

Eleven real pages in two languages

Each language has 11 pages: Home, Marketing, Consulting, Web and software, Automation, Projects, Notebook, About us, Contact, Guestbook and Search, plus a custom 404 page. English is at the root and the Russian mirror is under /ru/. Every page has its own title and description, and all badges and cross-links point to real pages.

The content keeps to the facts. The Projects page, called the Project cabinet, opens with an honesty notice: its three folders are demonstration scenarios showing how work would be scoped, and none of them claims a client result. The Notebook gives three free notes on leads, websites and automation. The Guestbook explains that public entries are off for now, so signing it prepares an email, and it shows no entries until real visitors agree to be published.

Old look, current code

The pages are plain HTML and CSS produced by a Python build script, with no framework and no build dependencies. The site loads no external scripts, fonts, CDNs, trackers or analytics cookies. Site search runs in the browser over the actual pages, and the page directory still works with JavaScript turned off. On a phone the main article comes first and the navigation scrolls sideways, while the desktop stays dense on purpose. Motion stops when the visitor's system asks for reduced motion.

Where it stands today

On 8 November 2026 the site opens at oldschool.mmix.biz in English, with the Russian version under /ru/. The bulletin board dates the current portal design to 15 October 2026. The footer reads "Graphics: 2001 · Work: 2026" and states that enquiries go to the group's INNOVA inbox.

Related

The site: small business website design and corporate websites. Another design built from one idea: PAGEINDEX. The founder's site, also a static build from one source: maxstepanenko.com.

Project lead: Marketing MIX. Product: OLD SCHOOL, a project brand and creative showcase of our group. Year: 2026.