Not only has 2009 come to a close, so has the decade of the 00s. So rather than simply recapping the past year, I thought I would look back at the entire decade.

As the clocks rolled over to Y2K, the Internet had started to take hold in many of our lives. Now it is hard to find anyone who doesn’t use the Internet on a regular basis. For those of us in the design world, it is an integral tool to our work and many of us are involved in design for the Internet.

Technologies such as garment printing didn’t really exist at the start of the decade. Sure, there were sublimation printers that could create artwork to be heat-pressed onto garments, but nothing like the printers we have today. I’m sure the printers will continue to improve in the coming decade as the industry matures.

It has become much easier to communicate with others throughout the globe. That may come through e-mail, VOIP calls or even social media like Facebook and Twitter. In any given day, I will often speak with someone on many different continents. Of course this also means that users around the world can order products from Graphics Unleashed.

The ability to communicate so easily couldn’t have come at a better time since air travel has become more and more difficult. It started early in the decade with the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the attacks haven’t gone away with the latest attempt taking place on Christmas Day. I used to enjoy taking short plane trips and now I’ll drive to avoid the hassles of flying whenever possible. Driving isn’t always possible, so I still have to suffer through more flights than the average person. This to me is really sad since I used to enjoy flying.

Corel Corporation has had quite a decade. They were a high-flying public company at the start of the decade and crashed to earth soon afterwards. As the stock found new depths, the company was taken private. Then it was made public again and was once again taken private late in 2009. CorelDRAW has matured greatly and changes are now more incremental than monumental. The most exciting new features are actually created by the many macro developers extending the capabilities of CorelDRAW. This trend is sure to continue in the next decade.

The past two years have been tough for many of us thanks to the collapse of the world economy. My impression is that the worst is behind us and things are starting to improve. As a business owner, I sure hope things will improve. Many of you are also business owners and I hope that you are also starting to see improvement. May we all see a more prosperous 2010 and beyond!

With that, I’ll end the first post of the next decade. I wish all of you the best in 2010 and I hope to continue to provide useful information to each and every one of you.