There’s approximately 10 hours and 50 minutes left of 2008, just enough time to review a rather eventful year (before the wine starts flowing a bit too freely).

Me

The doors opened on Leon Paternoster in May of this year. Armed only with my first WordPress theme, the iA site (particularly this manifesto) and a new-found love of all things Nielsen, I began writing somewhat stern posts on all things design: anti-ornamentation, anti-grids, anti-non web fonts and anti-small type sizes. A lot of antis. Looking back, some of the early posts are a bit too strident, although, to my surprise, some well known names in the designer world left encouraging comments.

The blog and the home page have always been separate, a design flaw that I’m yet to remedy. As I’ll be changing host soon, I guess that’ll be the time to do it.

August saw my big traffic spike: Smashing Magazine was kind enough to link to my Into the White theme. This generated just over a thousand visits on the day of publication, and continues to send a few dozen a month. It also lead to a few requests for work. Of course, this also opened me up to a new level of scrutiny. At first I found criticism painfully difficult, but I soon appreciated this as the best form of disinterested feedback. As a result my work, especially my second published theme, has improved. So thank you for leaving any comments!

Vivien at iBit was kind enough to critque my site in November. Vivien’s advice is absolutely invaluable, and I’ve taken some of it on board when redesiging the site (I’m on version 4 already, by the way. Whenever I get a spare couple of days I get the urge to WordPress!) The article sent a small amount of traffic, mainly from the design world. It certainly generated a few more quality comments.

The blog has undergone a few changes in 8 or so months. My latest design uses v4 of the site used a 5-column grid, absolute sizing units and a 14px body copy size. I’m not entirely sure it’s gone in the right direction (post to follow Update: the blog was redesigned).

There are some nice people on the internet

The blog has served as an excellent way to read some helpful folk’s ideas. So thanks to everyone who has commented on, written about or used my work over the year.

And some of them are really talented

My favourite sites of the year have provided me with endless amounts of inspiration and a chance to learn from some seriously clever people who have far more ability than me. These include Jon Tan, Sander, Nielsen, iA, Jonathon Christopher, Jens Meiert, Kyle, Dan Mall, Smashing Magazine, Michael Tuck, Contrast, Andrei Michael Herasimchuk, Andy Rutledge (I’m still chuckling at that Obama site and the fall out) and Jeremy Heigh. I’ve read (but not particularly enjoyed) copyblogger and problogger tips from a ‘professional’ standpoint.

The year of minimalism. Maybe.

2008 has, I believe, seen an increase in the number of sites created by talented typographers looking to present text in a readable and attractive format. The age of the graphic designer who turns his or her arm to web design is maybe passing. On the other hand, a minimal look has surfaced, which is often quite happy to use unnecessary javascript, Flash etc. in order to look clean, simple etc. Remember kids, minimalism is an approach, not a look!

It was also the year of bloggers not writing posts for months and then saying that they were doing this for ‘quality’ reasons. For some reason, I found this annoying: there are lots of valid reasons for not posting to your blog, including lack of inspiration!

So here’s to a fantastic – and productive – 2009!

Chin chin,

Leon