InPublishing: .net Awards 2013 Winners Announced!

The awards celebrated the best talent in design and web development, and entrepreneurs and agencies shaping the future of the global web over the last year. A panel of 50 industry experts decided the winners from a shortlist voted for by .net Magazine readers and industry peers.

Under 25s scooping the Young Developer of the Year and Young Designer of the Year awards were UK South Coast-based Anna Debenham and Dan Edwards respectively. Anna, who impressed the judges with her research on the browsers in games consoles, is a front-end developer and co-hosts Unfinished Business, a weekly podcast about the business end of the web. Web designer Dan’s branding and sign design for a Q&A night called Altitude, and the designing of an email client within just two hours - a challenge set by himself - saw him beat healthy competition to win top spot.

The New Entrepreneur of the Year award went to Clare Sutcliffe, a London based web designer who last year, together with Linda Sandvik, launched Code Club. 787 volunteer-led after school coding clubs for nine-to-eleven year olds have now been created nationwide as a result.

Laura Kalbag from Brighton came away with the Brilliant Newcomer of the Year award for her work specialising in design for web and mobile across small business, individuals and start-ups; and Best Online Portfolio went to developer Stephen Burgess wowing the judges with minimalmonkey.com.

Typecast, a browser-based app for creating beautiful, realistic and consistent designs based on typography was awarded with Game Changer of the Year; CSS Flexible Box Layout providing much needed relief for layout problems secured Best New Web Technology; Bootstrap, a sleek, intuitive, and powerful front-end framework for faster and easier web development created by Mark Otto and Jacob Thornton won the Open Source Project of the Year category; and Side Project of the Year went to Am I responsive, recognising Justin Avery’s time-saving tool which previews designs across Desktop, Laptop, Tablet and Mobile.

Finally, SuperFriendly run by Dan Mall with Project Manager Matt Cook won the Best New Agency award. This US design studio, based in Philadelphia and Greenville, South Carolina defeats apathy and the forces of evil by making brave sites and apps for screens of all sizes.

Oliver Lindberg, Editor of .net, said: “Many thanks to our sponsors for their support of the .net Awards and to everyone who voted this time around. These awards honour the best new talent and projects shaping the next generation web, and recognise the winners and contenders in today’s hugely competitive market. We’re all looking forward to seeing what’s on the cards next.”

Headline sponsor for the .net Awards 2013 was Internet Explorer and category sponsors: GitHub, Heart Internet, OPM Recruitment, Shutterstock and WooThemes.

Winners’ responses will be featured in the summer issue of .net Magazine, on sale from Tuesday 16 July 2013.