The web needs you. It needs your thoughts, your feelings, your skills and your position on life and your personal creativity, not a clone. The web doesn’t need another designer site that looks like every other designer site. The web doesn’t need another site with CSS badges, valid xhtml badges, get firefox stamps, apple fanboyness and more if it’s not you. Yes, I believe in making sites accessible. I believe in being excellent in what you do, but you don’t have to conform.

I want to encourage you. For years people have told me that my style or what I do would not hack it in the “corporate” world and that is just not true. People admire originality. People respect when others just be themselves. I have noticed that the most important thing is that you represent your dreams and your ideals with the most excellence that you can muster.

What does this mean in the web design and blogging world? Don’t conform. Don’t be average. Be you and be you to your fullest. Pour as much excellence into your site design and articlees as you can. So its a rogue idea? Who cares! Throw yourself into your project or article with as much reckless abandon as you can fathom. So you have a cool idea. Shoot for it!

There’s one thing I’ve learned about the design industry. There is something about design and visual work that draws people to critique it. It’s almost like because most people have vision and can see, they are instantly a design critic. Instantly they talk about what they don’t like about your site, your work, your art. Does this happen for programmers? Not necessarily. Not all people can form an opinion on the effectiveness of code. Because of this reason, it is so important that you take critique with a grain of salt.

Don’t listen to negativity. Be humble and take honest real critiques, but be yourself. You have something to offer. You have something within you that the world hasn’t seen yet. You can bring something to the table that doesn’t conform with everything else out there. The web needs you to bring your skills to the table. The web needs your creativity. The web needs you and not a clone.

These are the feelings that I feel about myself regarding design style and representing my faith. There are so many times when I feel like I need to conform to the populous. In many of my decisions in design and blogging, I have been on the fence, but it is so important that I represent myself and what I bring to the table as well. I want the same from others. We need to represent our own voice and respect the voice of others.