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Yep, it's another end of year email landing in your inbox. I'm sure you've received a barrage of them. My favourite (from Picket Studio) started with "Times up! Pens Down!" which I thought was a great way to remind us all to pack up from a big year and enjoy the holidays like we used to do when school finished. Before you do (or after if you like) here's a quick wrap up from Digital Eskimo of what we got up to this year.

We said hello to some awesome new clients this year including; Art Support, the Australia Council for the Arts, the Australian Human Rights Commission, the City of Sydney, Cundall, Good Environmental Choice Australia, Milliman via our good friends at Digital Ally,the National Centre of Indigenous Excellence, NewsStand, TAFE NSW - Sydney Institute, UTS Engineering, and the UTS Library, the University of Western Sydney, and the Water Factory Company.

We also continued working with the inspiring folks at the Asia Pacific Forum, the MUA, Randwick, Waverley and Woollahra Councils, the National Relay Service, the NSW Architects Registration Board, Telstra Digital, UNSW International, UNSW Learning and Teaching, UTS Engineering, UTS Marketing & Communications Unit, Vodafone and Westpac.

A huge thanks to all of you for entrusting your projects and businesses with us. Also to our partners who have helped us deliver the exceptional work detailed below. Big-ups to the many people who contributed their time and collaborated in our co-design labs and research too. After all you can't co-design without a community to do it with.

And finally from me to the Eskimos thank you for co-designing, co-creating and co-habitating the Igloo and this beautiful planet we're all trying to learn to live "lightly, carefully and gracefully" upon with me. (To quote yet again my hero Bill McKibben)

This coming year will bring with it more economic and social change, more chances to influence it and more opportunities to bring the power of design and technology to tackle the increasingly gnarly challenges we all face, together. I hope we can work (and play!) together in the coming year and make an even bigger difference than this one.

Have a safe and (above all!) restful break,

Dave Gravina and Digital Eskimos

UNSW Research Gateway is a go!

Three years in the making the UNSW Research Gateway which launched mid year takes the record for our longest running project. A pan-faculty portal to UNSW's world class research operations the site connects people with projects in innovative and effective ways. It's safe to say this is the best and most comprehensive website of its type in the world.

UNSW Learning and Teaching

As testament to the success of the design of the Research Gateway, UNSW decided to replicate the user interface and many of the core principles on the university's Learning and Teaching sister site which encompasses another major function of UNSW. Together they represent a huge leap forward for collaboration, management and promotion of UNSW's performance.

A Good start(up)

In case you didn't notice all the excited emails and party invites, we launched our first wholly owned product into the world a few months ago. Do Gooder is now a fully fledged start-up with big ambitions and a number of customers already running successful campaigns. We're excited to see where the good people will take it next.

Campaign wins!

We were very happy to work with a key solar industry player to use Do Gooder to help convince Barry O'Farrell to not backflip on Solar contracts. There was also a huge result with NewsStand's media inquiry campaign and the decision to deny the government the right to process refugees in Malaysia. All successful campaigns that Do Gooder supported through its easy-to-use powerful online campaigning tools.

The Revolution will be composted

We have another product in the works too - there's something addictive about launching products that generate change while you sleep. The Compost Revolution is a community project that encourages residents to take up composting or worm farming at home, and it's about to go national. If you know a council who needs it, please send them our way!

How do you keep foxes from your chicken coup?

That's a real question Dave asked and he was delighted with the speed in which the chicken coup experts fired back (the same day!). We had another great year supporting the work of the Reduce Your Footprint project, providing online ads, feature enhancements and a whole new way for experts to share their knowledge through the Green Berets programme.

Learn how to Storyboard with Ben Crothers

Design Strategist Ben Crothers shared the secrets to his story boarding genius. So if you've ever wanted to tell a compelling story fast, check his series out .

Something in Common

Launched just days ago with the Australian Human Rights Commission, Something in Common asks Australians to dig a little deeper, think again and have a conversation about the rights we take for granted. A big thanks to Morgan who helped us deliver the project on a tight budget. Listen to a Podcast interview with myself & Graham Innes lo learn more about the project.

Tell Me Something I Don't Know

The Australian Human Rights Commission's Something in Common strategy includes a second website that cuts through the information overload of a busy day. Tell me Something I Don't Know is easy to share and acts as a "feeder" site for the campaign, prompting people to dig deeper and join the conversation on the Something in Common site.

Influencing the City

Dave received a nice surprise earlier this month when the Sydney Morning Herald's (sydney) magazine decided he was one of Sydney's most influential people again this year. It was all because of Do Gooder so the whole DE team deserve the credit though only Dave got to go to the fancy awards party! :)

UWS Virtual Learning empowers Chillean teachers

In 2008 a team from the University of Western Sydney (UWS) launched Futuro Infantil Hoy, an early childhood education pilot program in Chile to deliver teacher training, improve leadership skills and develop communities incorporating social and cultural themes including citizenship, families and sustainability. UWS engaged DE to co-design a Virtual Learning Envirornment to scale the pilot which emphasised ease of use and social features.

A refreshed UNSW International

It's critical for projects to be reviewed and refined after launch, no matter what medium they are in. UNSW International continued to work with the DE team to improve the user experience of prospective students and education agents in this major update. UNSW has outperformed the sector this year and we're pleased to have contributed to that result.

Our second iPad app goes back in time

The team pulled a rabbit out of a hat for TAFE NSW this year making an iPad app on a budget our iOS developers said couldn't be done (they were right!). We pushed the tech envelope with an HTML-5 wrapped time travelling machine for the 120 year anniversary of Sydney Institute exhibition.

Economics of Happiness and Deep Ecology

It was quality not quantity this year in the DE Talks and Flicks series. Helena Norbeg skyped in to share her insights after we were all inspired by her movie Economics of Happiness and John Seed showed us what it means to be truly connected to the Earth in his delightful Deep Ecology talk.

Upping the green

Another year of green drinking to inspire green thinking at greenUps. We were directly involved in the Green Design and Green Travel nights, both receiving top feedback. If you haven't been getting to the nights, it kicks off again in February next year and really is a great way to expand your contacts & green your career.

Who was that speedy bearded man?

The city was just that little bit better-looking and fit this year for a month as Anthony Ditton, DE's number 2 cyclist (I'm number 1 dammit! DG) was plastered all over bus shelters, newspapers and magazines along with cinema adverts and online video channels for the City of Sydney's Everything's Connected campaign. Female cycling numbers surged according to stats just in.

Helping Vodafone with its service offering

It was a fascinating year for the Vodafone team at Digital Eskimo as they worked behind the scenes helping the internal design team with its User Experience challenges. A number of projects, all yet to be launched, will soon be impacting on the online service experience of its customers.

Eric publishes about Designing for Mobile Interfaces

We've had Masters and PhDs and published our share of white papers and extended blog posts but this year marked the first eskimo to (co-) author a whole book. Designing for Mobile Interfaces is published by O'Reilly. Big-ups to published author Eric Berkman, who joined us from the States this year, settled in a strange new country, took on a new role AND managed to write a book in his spare time.

Green your (big) screen

We had a lot of fun working with the City of Sydney and our mates at Sixty 40 on some yet-to-be-released animations promoting green living. The three mini films wil be released in cinemas and around town next year so watch out for them!

Imagine being able to control a robot from your bedroom!

That's exactly what the engineering students at UTS can now do thanks to the Lab Share project. This impressive project allows students to access a laboratory to conduct experiments remotely. We helped the UTS team brand and design the marketing and catalogue website for the project. It now looks as good as it functions.

Painting the web red

Working with the poets at the Red Room Company allowed us to explore the art of storytelling through words. This informed a unique user interface designed and developed specifically for the project. The Red Room Company website is fun, interactive and showcases what you can do on a small budget with creativity and perseverance.

Design Thinking Drinks

The quiet achiever of the Australian human rights world

The Asia Pacific Forum (APF) is one of those amazing organisations that achieves so much but flys under the radar. We're proud to have helped the APF showcase their work in a much more engaging way this year with a major site update as well as supporting their work with an innovative Virtual Learning platform.

Do what worx

Anthony Ditton presented to our industry peers at UX Australia this year, sharing insights and learnings from the Powerhouse Museum Water Worx game project, and how to make the most of user and client co-creation on projects. Water Worx continues to draw the kids into the challenging world of water management at the Ecologic exhibition.

Retreat! Retreat!

The team took break from change making and spent three days refreshing, rethinking and connecting with our mission (and personal purposes). Facilitated by the excellent Kate Harris it was a great start to the year, welcoming Eric and Ben to the team and helping set our course for the coming months.

And its a wrap ...

(No need to mention that we didn't have Christmas party!) We certainly had our fair share of events across the year. One thing we tend to excel at at (mainly thanks to Catherine Marshall our Chief Wellbeing Officer) is throwing a party. Check out all the shots (at least those fit to publish) our Flickr stream and enjoy.