Best of the Best: 2009

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A little bit of sad news; This will be the last post on Marcofolio on 2009. I'm going to Austria for two weeks and enjoy a winter sport vacation. But don't worry, I'm planning on finishing this year with another great article.

Just like last year, I contacted several (web)design bloggers and asked them the following question: Could you provide me with the URL of what you think is the best article that you wrote in the past year (2009)? If you do, please add a short description why you found that article the best one. As you can imagine, this post is a round up with the actual best posts from the past year from several great blogs.

I have nothing left to say except to wish you a safe and joyful new year's eve and I hope to see you back (with all your fingers) in 2010! Check out this Christmas card from me and my girlfriend, wishing this to everybody in the world.

Now let's see what the people behind the blogs consider to be their best article from the past year. Smashing Magazine has two entries, but I allowed them since they're from different authors.

Best of the Best: 2009

46 Stunning High Resolution Photoshop Light Effect Brushes

@colorburned:
I'd have to say this article was my favorite because it was not only one of my most popular posts but it was also just an amazing set of Photoshop brushes.

30 Horrific Commercial Photoshop Disasters

@creativenerds:
This was our first ever article which we had produced which reached the front page of Digg, this helped our blog immensely it helped to broaden our content across to a wider audience and helped us to attracted a new loyal readership which help to boost our RSS Subscriber count.

Creating a Web App from Scratch

@chriscoyier:
The "Create a Web App from Scratch" was a fairly ambitious set of articles co-written between myself and Jason Lengstorf. We go through the process all the way from having an idea and rough sketches to a complete and working application on the web that anybody can use. The main technologies are PHP, jQuery, and of course HTML and CSS, all of which we discuss in the series of articles. I think this is my favorite of the year just because of the scope of it. We managed to actually build the thing and write about it, get feedback, and survive!

Introducing MooTools ScrollSpy

@davidwalshblog:
I'm very proud of this post because the plugin, ScrollSpy, makes the process of listening to where a user scrolls to within a defined space extremely easy. Creating scroll event listeners can be redundant and time-consuming -- MooTools ScrollSpy fixes that. The plugin was very well received and I look forward to improving it in 2010.

If Content is Really King, Then What is Design?

@designbumped:
The best article for 2009 from DesignBump is "If Content is Really King, Then What is Design?" Written for DesignBump by Mike Smith, the article poses the question "What is design?" Getting the reader to take a look at the importance of design in relation to the content it is helping to deliver. The post has sparked a very interesting conversation and has received more comments than any other article on DesignBump this year.

How To Create Your First AJAX and PHP Contact Form

@drewdouglass:
I think it was popular as it walked beginners through each step of the development process, piece by piece. Also, live demos and downloadable files always improve the popularity of posts.

What's Your Favourite Colour?

@fudgegraphics:
This article was one of the most successful ones in terms of traffic and comments in 2009. 40 amazing designers and bloggers answered one simple question: What's your favourite colour? I was thrilled with all the answers and positive feedback. As a special treat all the different colours were compiled into a poster. I chose this one as I believe that it was the most special article I published in 2009.

QueryLoader - preload your website in style

@gayadesign:
The year 2009 was a crazy year for sure, it is my first year managing a blog after all! My favorite article this year has to be "QueryLoader - preload your website in style". This article has created a great buzz on my website, it is also the most read article I have written. The best thing for a blogger is to have a lot of discussion going on, and I believe this particular script really made this happen. I love creating jQuery scripts and I love it when readers give great responses to it. It just makes me that much happier I got the chance to share the stuff I create.

Adaptive web forms

@jankowarpspeed:
Although there were many more popular and visited articles in 2009, I'd say it is "Adaptive web forms". Not just because I had a great pleasure of turning chaotic thoughts into a shape, but also because I am convinced this is really good solution which might help users suffer less. Also this was the first article on conceptual UI principles I intend to write about in the future.

How to Create a Lifestream of Your Online Activities

@line25blog:
For Line25, my personal favourite isn't statistically the most popular post, but it's one I really enjoyed creating, and I've also seen some great follow-ups from readers who have used the tutorial to create a lifestream of their own. Since creating the tutorial, I've never found anywhere to put the lifestream, but I'm determined to use it somewhere on my personal website!

A fancy Apple.com-style search suggestion

@marcofolio:
I didn't really know whether to select the polaroid photo viewer (which many people created a spin-off from) or the Fancy Apple.com-style search suggestion as "my best from 2009". Yet, I choose the search suggestion since that is the one that is way more practical and can be used on many websites. It's beautiful to see, and a great tutorial explaining some PHP, JavaScript and AJAX techniques combined. I already got some e-mails and comments from people that used (or modified) the script on their own website. It's one of my bigger gifts to the webdesign community from the past year!

Design a Stunning Sneaker Advert

@psdfan:
As much as I like writing inspirational posts and articles, coming up with creative tutorials is where my passion really lies. This tutorial captured one of my favorite moments of the year, where I was feeling very creative and was really experimenting with new techniques and ideas. I really like the outcome of this tutorial and a lot of people seemed to enjoy it.

Using XAMPP for Local WordPress Theme Development

@sixrevisions:
This was a tutorial that was very appreciated by the readers, as shown by their comments. Though the process itself would take me 10 minutes to perform, writing the tutorial took close to 8 hours! But reading the comments on the article made every minute I invested in writing it more than worth it. The whole concept of Six Revisions is to "share useful information to developers and designers", and this article epitomizes that. This article isn't necessarily the most viewed article this year (far from it), but to me, it's not about how many people see it, it's how many people read and appreciate it.

The death of the boring blog post?

@smashingmag:
This article was a very controversial and has created an intensive discussion in the design community about blogs and the future of blog post designs. The article required many efforts and time, but it was a very unique post and the response was overwhelming. It received over 600 comments and was very popular in social media.

Web Design Trends For 2009

@smashingmag:
For this article, we have carefully analyzed web design trends in the beginning of the year, trying to identify new design approaches, common design patterns and common design solutions. The result was very impressive: over the year the traffic of this article grew, ranging from search engines traffic to blog posts to direct traffic. The article also prompted many designers to discuss about these design trends, web design trends in general and predict what will happen next in 2009. A week later, we presented More Web Design Trends For 2009.

Smart Columns with CSS and jQuery

@sohtanaka:
I have been working with liquid/semi-liquid websites for the past couple of years, and one of the challenges I faced was getting columns to display evenly on any resolution. Being the anal designer/developer that I am, I decided to take charge and correct this issue. I feel this tutorial is practical and simple (even a beginner can grasp the concept), yet very effective to solve a common problem.

Twitter Background Design How-To and Best Practices

@chrisspooner:
One of the most popular posts from 2009 on Blog.SponGraphics was my how-to and best practices post on Twitter background design. I think what helped this post gain that little extra exposure was how it thoroughly looks at the different types of background designs with a collection of examples, then goes on to a full tutorial on how the user can create a custom background of their own - Right down to uploading the setting the Twitter options. As a result, the post is one of the most popular topics of all time on my blog, and has helped out stacks of people both in the design industry and beyond.

Typography is the backbone of good web design

@behoff:
The article not only shares information, but personal tips on how to improve typography on your website (and in all mediums of design). It's short and concise while still being impactful and informative. I am a supporter of good type how great design can easily be lost with bad typography.

An AJAX Based Shopping Cart with PHP, CSS and jQuery

@tutorialzine:
My favorite article of the past year has to be this one. It is because it was the first tutorial I had written, that was picked by the big guys in the field and showed me that if you focus on creating better content, it is guaranteed to draw more attention.

The Future of Interface Design

@uxbooth:
This article was very fun to research for. The whole idea of the post was to expose people to what new technologies are being developed to change the way we interact with computers and devices in the future. Half the time I was writing this piece I felt like I was working with science fiction!

15 Steps to a More Productive Workday

@stevensnell:
This post is one that I was excited to write, but I didn't really anticipate that it would draw as much response or interest as it did. It doesn't include any pretty pictures or links to never-before-seen resources. Over the last few years I've tried to focus on productivity and efficiency in my work because I stay pretty busy managing several websites of my own plus client work (design and writing). The post included lessons that I've learned in my own work, so I hoped they would be practical and useful for others as well. Some of the tips were more common and are things that you've probably read from other articles on the topic, but I think there are a few that most readers probably have not seen before. I was really surprised that the post drew as many comments, links, and tweets as it did, and I think that makes it the most memorable post of the year for me.

List of Really Useful Plugins and Resources For MooTools

@w3avenue:
I like this article most because it was really fun to write, specially when sub-heading matched perfectly with Bon Jovi's song titles. To me MooTools is like a cow boy hero who despite its awesome abilities is misunderstood and not fully appreciated in the community. This article showcases really useful plugins and resources for anyone using MooTools or thinking about using a JavaScript framework.

100% Web-Based Working For Web Designers

@umutm:
As a developer who needs to work from different locations, I'm in search of the most effective working environment where I'll have all my files, applications are with me wherever I'm online. For the last few years, I'm remotely connecting to my home PC when I'm not there. But this isn't the best way, and lately, web applications who can carry a web designer/developer to the clouds are improved so much.

How to Spot Quality within Web Design

@liammckay:
I think for me, this is the article I always wanted to get written. I'd waited a white for the right moment to put this together, and while I missed a few of the points I wanted to make it felt really good to get my opinion across to so many people. It was probably my post popular post in terms of people sharing the link, and comments. And while people didn't always agree with all of my points, it was good to see so many people talking about "Quality Design".

Do you own a blog? Please share your best article of 2009 with the rest of us and explain why you choose that post.