I always see other “designers” who have no natural design abilities (just a knowledge of Photoshop usually) getting recognition for creating something (a website, logo etc.) that looks attractive and gets attention because it’s in style, yet is so painfully commonplace. I wanted to capitalize on that market and use my skills knowing that I can do it better. Better in the sense that it combines something attractive with a reason behind why it was designed that way.

I guess the difference is, when trends change I know I’ll be fine since I have a true understanding of what design is and not just how to make something look pretty.

I started reading this article because I found the topic interesting, but I must say I lost interest as you derailed from what I thought was the main subject of the text. Sure, your opinons about web-design were somewhat interesting, and you write well, but I think the long intro and the headline was pretty misleading.

Anyway, I’m not posting this to flame or anything, but I reckon anyone’s opinion could be useful to a writer.

I don’t mean sites are successful because they rank high purely based on traffic. It’s a perceived success by site owners.

By list posts, I wasn’t talking about original list items posts. I was mainly talking about list of links to other sites, as the main content of the site. Therefore, a portal site if you will. However, my view somewhat changed regarding this type of site.

I think there are different types of design blog sites within the web design community. Some offer original articles, tutorials while others offer lists of inspirations from elsewhere. Most sites I frequent are a mix of both. Your blog is a good example.

I really want to comment on many of your points however do not have the time but I would focus on this one paragraph that you wrote:

A contributing factor is the vastly available “design blogs.” At first glance, they may appear to be helpful. They offer tons of css tricks, graphical tool tutorials and showcases. However, competence in tools does not equate to competence in design. This is what most people new to design don’t realize. Most of these blog sites see success as number of traffic hits, or how high they rank on Digg. I’d rather see these popular sites offer original, design focused articles than links to other sites that link to other sites.

I completely agree with you that because of these new sites anyone can now pick up a photoshop brush or pen tip and become a “designer” however I do not agree with you the measure of success based on traffic / digg. Personally, I write what I think will benefit other designers and upcoming artists wanting to improve their skills in design… I do this by offering tips, giving insights and walking through my processes but I also provide those list posts which give further advice. I believe if all design blogs could do this (and write more articles such as this one) the design industry would become a better place.

I’m off now to read the article on ADA and the reply on PostiveSpaceBlog.