It happened again. Today, Smashing Magazine celebrates its second birthday. We are two years old now and we are proud of what we have achieved over these years. To celebrate our anniversary, we could do any number of things. For instance, we could organize a huge giveaway—as we did one year ago—but, of course, bigger and more overwhelming. However, we won’t do that; after all, we’re giving away stuff every week and we have many contests where our readers can win truly smashing prizes. (New contests are already on their way.)

Instead, we could share some insight about the highlights of Smashing Magazine over the last 12 months: an exploding number of page views, hundreds of thousands of backlinks, numerous testimonials and rewarding ad revenues. But we would probably sound like show-offs and we can’t afford to do that; after all, we have only published 301 posts so far.

Another possibility would be to discuss our plans for the future. What’s happening behind the scenes? What’s in the works? We could even share some top-secret information about the planned Smashing Book Series or new Smashing Forum. However, we won’t do that, because nobody can predict how successful those will really be.

Hence, the only remaining thing for us—Vitaly, Sven, the writers and other creative, hard-working minds of the Smashing Magazine team—to do is express our sincere gratitude to each of our readers for an absolutely smashing year. Without you—each and every one of you—our small magazine could not exist and definitely could not become what it has become today.

Comment and Win an Exclusive Poster!

Still, we do have a small surprise for you: a handful of exclusive Smashing Magazine posters, designed by the well-known, talented artist James White. You can preview the poster here or read the Making Of.

We are giving away 8 exclusive printed Smashing Anniversary posters, shining like gold in A3 format. Only 11 posters have been printed worldwide. If you want to win one of them, just write some kind words and congratulations in a comment to this post.

The winners will be determined randomly among all valid comments (spam and ad links do not count). Don’t forget to provide a valid email address in the input field, otherwise we won’t be able to notify you.

Thank you, folks! We really appreciate your support.

(al)