Error 404 - Page Not Found

Error 404

Page Not Found

“The 404 or Not Found error message is a HTTP standard response code indicating that the client was able to communicate with a given server, but the server could not find what was requested.”

That’s what Wikipedia says, anyway. Reading between the lines, it means either we fucked up, or you fucked up — seeing as the customer (or in this case, the reader) is always right, we’ll shoulder the blame. We might have deleted the page because it was old and we were embarrassed of it, you might have typed something incorrectly. Don’t worry about that, like we said — we’ll shoulder the blame.

If you’re not familiar with the soft underbelly of the internet, you mightn’t have stumbled across a fancy 404 before — truth is, you’re better off that way. You see, web types being web types, the 404 has found itself somewhat of an unlikely cult. Nifty web startup companies from Silicon Valley to Sheffield spend hours brainstorming the content of these pages over artisan coffee. Or pies. Anything from ironic ‘90s ’under construction’ GIFs to expensively-shot stock images, witty retorts and web-geek in-jokes.

So, when it came to putting the finishing touches to our spangly new website (which of course might be old now, depending on when you’re reading this), the inevitable 404 question arose. What chucklesome game could we play? What subversive little window into the inner-workings of the digital world could we open? We thought hard, we thought minutely, meticulously and maniacally. Then ... we ran out of time.