When Kickstarter turned 10 this April, we took a look back at the decade of impact Kickstarter projects have had on our world. Now, as our birthday year comes to a close and we prepare to enter a new decade (!), we asked a few of our teammates to share the projects that made an impact on them this past year.

It’s an eclectic collection, spanning public artworks and climate change initiatives, photo books about Detroit techno and hard-hitting journalism about political malfeasance. In 2019, over 6 million people pledged more than $610 million to help bring these—and some 19,000 other—projects to life, and they contributed to some incredible milestones: $1 billion pledged to both Games and Design, $100 million pledged to Comics, and 100 million pesos pledged to projects from Mexico. We can’t wait to see what our community will create and support in the new year (including all of your Make 100 projects in January).

Read on for some of our team’s favorite projects from 2019.

Scroll down for Spanish. Versión en español a continuación.

Since Kickstarter launched in Mexico in November 2016, we have been blown away by the creativity displayed by Mexican creators. And our backers agree. We’re happy to announce that backers from all over the world have now pledged 100 million Mexican pesos (over US$5 million) to projects from Mexico.

“Where something is made, how something is made, and who makes it—these are part of the identity of the thing itself,” says Luke Pontifell. 

He should know: since 1985 he’s been crafting stunning limited-edition handmade books using antique technologies as the founder of Thornwillow Press. He’s built his creative practice, his company, and his entire career around these exquisite works, preserving and sharing ancient crafts, publishing innovative new works, reviving literary classics, and building a community of ideas that stretches from Thornwillow’s factory in Newburgh, New York, to Singapore, Australia, London, and all the rest of the way around the globe. 

For their next dazzling trick, Thornwillow aims to reinvigorate not just a few more entrancing titles, but an entire city with the launch of their Makers Village.

This Black Friday and beyond, back a project for no reward, just because it speaks to you.

Today is Black Friday in the United States, and next week, online stores around the world will be flooded with shoppers for Cyber Monday. Here at Kickstarter, we’re marking the start of the holiday season with a campaign of our own, encouraging our community to support a creator’s project and process. This holiday season, you’re invited to back it because you believe in it.

There are a million and one reasons to back a project on Kickstarter, and getting a great reward is only one of them. Sometimes you just want to show a creator you believe in their work, without getting something in return. Last year alone, over 200,000 people backed projects on Kickstarter for no reward, pledging over $15 million to help creators bring their projects to life. That’s what we want to celebrate this season.

Creators can now make and share a budget for their project directly from the Kickstarter project editor.

Back in August we introduced a simple Funding Calculator that gives creators more insight into project costs that are sometimes forgotten, like taxes and fees. Today we’re rolling out a much more robust tool to help with project planning. And we’ve given it a no-nonsense name: Project Budget.

Project Budget is essentially a budgeting spreadsheet that’s available from the Funding tab in the project editor. Creators can use it to map out the cost of their entire project, from prototyping and R&D to packaging and shipping. Once they’ve done this, they have the option of sharing a custom graph of their budget data in a new section of the project page.

On November 8, at 1 am, Icelandic pop icon Björk donned a spectacular mask and cocooned herself in an artificial jungle for a surprise DJ set on the smallest stage of Le Guess Who?, an art and music festival in Utrecht, the Netherlands.

This kind of multisensory experience is typical of the festival, which has grown into a premier destination for music and art discovery in Europe. Every year, the organizers pair their music lineup with exhibitions, film screenings, installations, and more to showcase performers’ creative interests beyond sound.

This urge to expand beyond one creative discipline was also the topic of conversation over the weekend at Kapitaal, a beloved DIY print shop and cultural hub, where Kickstarter and Le Guess Who? invited a series of multidisciplinary artists to transform the space into the official festival hangout and talk about working at the intersection of music and visual art: What skills apply to turning a visual idea into sound? How does music inform prose, poetry, and design? And how does one create collaborative spaces and lasting partnerships?

Here, Moor Mother, Lightning Bolt’s Brian Chippendale, and the founders of Stroom and Príncipe Discos share insights from their creative journeys and advice for others who might be starting to stretch into a new creative medium.

When you’re creating a connected product, it’s important to choose the right wireless technology. For most products and applications, wireless connectivity is a defining part of the user experience. So, you’ll want to understand your options before you commit to a path.

When health and wellness startup Vital wanted to make a consumer-facing, smartphone-connected finger cuff that tracks vital signs, the company had to move from a rough prototype to a minimum viable product in a matter of months. Rather than pushing forward with its current board, the company moved to a PCB design process that was customized. This product-specific custom solution, accommodating a pump, valve, and pressure sensor, did much more than a hobby board could and got the product to market on their tight timeline.

So many companies, like Vital, use a hobbyist development board as a canvas to sketch and refine their ideas. However, as the Vital team moved from idea to prototype and production, they made the transition from hobby boards to increasingly more custom solutions. This enabled them to reduce sourcing risks related to the availability and quality of components and to ensure that their design met functional requirements.

What’s the difference between a hobby development board and a product-specific custom board? Simply put, hobby boards are for experimentation while custom boards typically serve as the basis for finished commercial products.