for excellence in Australian Web Design
Founded in 2006, in memory of the late Nigel McFarlane, The McFarlane Prize is be awarded to an Australian designer or team for a site launched or significantly upgraded between September 1st 2008 and August 31 2009. Sites may be designed for Australian or non Australian individuals, organisations, companies or governments, but must be designed and developed by an individual or team which works in Australia for an Australian company, or by Australian citizens or permanent residents. Anyone may nominate a site, and there is no cost for nominating or being nominated for the prize.
Congratulations to this year's winner is Swinburne University of Technology.
The judges also decided to award a highly commended to J2Build.
Congratulations to them, to our shortlist and all the entrants. This year's standard was without doubt the highest yet, in every area, something that would have doubtless pleased Nigel McFarlane greatly.
This year, the Judges and organisers decided to recognize the significant achievement of Dmitry Baranovskiy, developer of the widely acclaimed Raphaël JavaScript Library, used at such high profile sites as the Washington Post. Dmitry's site for Raphaël also made the short list for this year.
The new McFarlane Medal will be awarded to Australians who make significant lasting contributions to the web, and may not be awarded every year.
As announced at the Award's ceremony that, in conjunction with and generous support ofPollenizer and Blurb we'll be publishing a lavish coffee table book featuring this years top 50 entrants to the McFarlane Prize. The books will be available shortly, with every top 50 entry receiving a copy. It will also be available for purchase.
The Judges have been hard at work with the higher than ever before standard of this year's Prize, and have decided on the short list for the 2009 Prize.
Last year's winning designers, Propeller Global, after two grueling rounds of judging have three sites they designed in the short list - Propeller Global, Redlands Spring Festival, and Running Errands.
Rounding out this year's top 6 are Swinburne University of Technology, J2Build by Scope Media, and Dmitry Baranovskiy's RaphaelJS site.
Congratulations to our finalists, and congratulations and thanks to all who entered - each year the standard rises in leaps and bounds. I'm sure that Nigel McFarlane, with his great passion for a standards based web would have been very gratified to see so many high profile sites built the way they are.
A huge thanks too to to all our Judges for their effort and expertise.
Named in memory of noted Australian web pioneer Nigel McFarlane, the McFarlane Prize aims to recognize and encourage excellence in web design by Australian web professionals.
The Prize rewards excellence in web design in the broadest sense, from the appropriate use of technology, to design aesthetics, to its impact more broadly on the web.
The Prize also aims to be a showcase of the best in Australian web design, and to inspire other Australian developers in their own endeavours.
The McFarlane Prize is awarded by a jury of Australian experts in various fields of web design and development. The decision process has two stages. In the first stage, entries are assessed for their adherence to best practices in accessibility and standards based coding (correct and valid use of CSS and HTML). These criteria are outlined in detail here.
The top 15 sites from this phase will be individually assessed in four areas by members of the jury who have expertise in a particular area.
These areas are
Based on the two rounds of judging, the McFarlane Prize shortlist will be announced on September 22nd.
The announcement of the winner of the inaugural McFarlane Prize will be made at the Web Directions Conference, October 8th 2009.
The winner of the McFarlane Prize, 2008, is Pro Plaster Products by Propeller Global. Billy Hughes at War for the Old Parliament House, by IceLab was highly commended by the judges. Congratulations to the team at Propeller, at IceLab, and all the finaists, and a huge thank you to the entrants.
The Jury for the prize has now drawn up the shortlist for this year's prize. The standard of this year's entries was without doubt the best yet, demonstrating that each year, the quality of Australia's web industry's output improves considerably. I'm sure Nigel would have been most pleased with that.
This year's shortlist (in alphabetical order) is
The winner of the McFarlane Prize for 2007 has been announced. Michael Koukoullis was awarded the prize by the Jury for his site Andrews Must Resign
After an arduous decision making process, the Jury in this years McFarlane Prize has decided on the shortlist. The shortlisted sites this year are
The quality of entrants this year was extraordinary, in particular in terms of best practice in coding, accessibility and development generally. If you'd like to know more about how the decision is made, and the criteria used, please see the judging criteria.
Congratulations to those shortlisted, and to all who entered. Thanks too to the Jury of Donna Maurer, Gian Sampson-Wild, Andy Coffey and Dmitry Baranovskiy for all their efforts.
The winner was announced on Thursday September 27th 1007 at Web Directions, by Dean Jackson.
Congratulations to the web development team from Museum Victoria, winners of the inaugural McFarlane Prize, for Caught and Coloured. It is a beautiful, well developed, usable and accessible site.
The Prize was awarded on Thursday 28, at the end of the first day of Web Directions South. We were very honoured to have Nigel McFarlane's parents at the ceremony, and the Prize was awarded by Nigel's sister, Colleen.
Congratulations too to Glass Onion, developers of the The Australian College of Physical Education site - highly commended by the Jury.
Thank you to all the nominees, and a particularly big thank you to Andy Coffey, for his painting "Page Impression" which was awarded to the winners of the prize, and to the Judges for their huge efforts and their expertise in deciding this year's winner.
We'll shortly be publishing some comments and thoughts from the Judges regarding the sites they saw - things developers are doing well, things that we could improve. So keep an eye here.
The following six sites were the finalists for the inaugural award in 2006. Congraulations to them, and indeed to all our entrants. The quality of the work entered was of a very high standard.