Our Review of the Year top posts countdown kicks off right here, right now

End of year countdowns – interesting and insightful or lazy content fillers for the Christmas period? While you muse on that, why not enjoy the first part of our Top 100 Articles from the site in 2012. Over the next ten days we’ll be showing you which of the 2,500 posts were the most popular, purely based on the numbers and with no curation from us. So without further ado, which ten just sneaked into the final selection after a last few frantic days…

It may have just broken into our list but Dan Has Potential’s video for Metronomy’s single Hypnose certainly won our hearts. WIth its cast of quintessentially British pets it touched on this country’s strange relationship with animals while also fitting the song perfectly.
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/metronomy-hypnose

One of our absolute favourite GIF projects of the year came in the form of this charming Tumblr from Berlin’s Lisette Berndt, aka Thoka Maer. Reminding us not to get too het up by life’s little frustrations, this collection gave us all some much-needed perspective.
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/its-no-biggie

Next up another Berlin-based creative into the top 100 despite being posted on the site less than a month ago. Jonas boasts a killer client list but nowhere are his consummate skills better demonstrated than in these arresting portraits.
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/jonas-lindstroem

Once again our Student of the Month has thrown up some great talents this year but only one makes our final countdown and that honour goes to uber-impressive graphic designer James T Edmondson from the California College of Arts in San Francisco. It’s not hard to see why…
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/student-of-the-month-james-t-edmondson

Shortly before the American people went to the polls, these amazing pictures of Barack Obama by official White House photographer Pete Souza were a big hit on the site showing intimate moments in one of the most pressuried lives in the world. We’re not saying we swung the election but…
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/pete-souza

And from Barack to birds we’re sticking with photography to celebrate Luke Stephenson’s delightful project featuring all manner of feathered friends apparently enjoying being the centre of attention. There were lots of Tweets about this if I remember rightly (sorry!)
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/luke-stephenson

In many years 2012 will be defined by the Olympics but although you can look forward to (much) more about London’s summer shinding further up this chart, our first Olympic nod is actually to the next games in Brazil. Dalton Maag’s engaging typeface for the Rio games is surely a sign of things to come.
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/dalton-maag-rio-type

Three facts sum up this excellent work – 1. In the Soviet era transport-related infrastructure was exempt form the strict architectural rules and so some amazing bus stops were built. 2. Photographer Christopher Herwig spent some time documenting these structures. 3. They’re ace.
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/christopher-herwig

Vice magazine celebrated ten years in the UK last month so we sat down with European managing editor Bruno Bayley to talk about how the magazine had evolved over a decade. We also looked at some of the iconic covers for which the publication is so (in)famous.
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/vice-ten-years-bruno-bayley-interview

As much as we like the fresh-faced young creatives pushing any boundary available there’s always room for a legend. Emiliano Ponzi is one of the world’s leading editorial illustrators and his NYC show gave us a great opportunity to profile then man and his work.
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/emiliano-ponzi