About craigslist
craigslist began in 1995 as Craig Newmark's events email list in San Francisco. It went on to become the web's best-known classifieds board without ever really getting a redesign. Its page is white, its links are browser blue and underlined, and the wordmark is set in purple Times.
This system keeps that discipline. Content sits in dense columns of links inside 1px grey boxes, type stays small, and the only weight is bold. There are no images, no shadows and no rounded corners.
- Origin
- San Francisco, California, USA
- Era
- 1995 email list; craigslist.org from 1996; layout largely unchanged through the 2000s and 2010s
- Key figures
- Craig Newmark · Jim Buckmaster
- Movements
- Web 1.0 plain HTML · Browser-default styling · Community classified ads
craigslist design spec
Colors
Background
Surface
Primary
Secondary
Accent
Text
Typography
ArimoHeadings
Open SansBody
Courier NewMono
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