Multiple Ways to Skin a Blog

I grew enamored of the idea of having a blog as yesterday progressed, and found myself killing time by (rather than reading Twilight, my book du jour) virtual window-shopping different blog templates online. I had specific goals: I wanted something grungy, not particularly feminine (I feel like pink things, flowers, and butterflies tend to overshadow the content and make whatever you write that much less important, and the last thing I need is for people to read my stuff with a vision of a prepubescent Harajuku girl with glitter in her pigtails), easy to implement, a bit edgy, and me.

There are a whole bunch of options (some of the best free ones being on btemplates.com and blogskins.com), as I found, but it seems that I enjoy window-shopping so damn much that I can't just commit. There are so many great and unappreciated graphic designers out there that just put out amazing work just for the f* of it, for sheer love of the craft. However, there are also many who basically just "fancy themselves" designers just because they know some tricks in Adobe Illustrator and can manipulate brushes. Others seem to simply lack taste, smashing Technicolor Dreamcoat color schemes in whatever acid trip-inspired order as they please.

Now, I've found that as the Internet revolution grows, the Web and world has become inundated with wannabes and hacks, thinking that since they "took a class" or something, that they're automatically really good at whatever it is they've decided they are. And I can't help but take offense to that.

Working as I do as a project manager for a small web design firm, Mudbug Media (see? My picture's even on the site :), it seems that each and every day, I encounter someone else that thinks they can do my coworkers' jobs. That since we use pre-existing designs for our orthopedic surgeon sites that they're just templates to "pop and drop" information into. That whatever it is they need done can be completed RIGHT THEN, since it's just that simple.

Well, word to the wise -- it's not. And it's completely disrespectful for people to call and say, "I designed my own page/blog/MySpace, and it was just that easy so I don't see why you can't just do it ..." and etc. It's almost like, in defense of my coworkers, I just want to shake their Fine Arts diplomas at these rude people and shout, "People go to SCHOOL for this!"

I guess that just goes to show how devalued our society's standards have become, that the unwashed/uneducated masses (I say that with tongue in cheek) seem to think they can do anything now ... conquer the world via T1. Perhaps that's the whole point of the American dream, to feel uninhibited and unrestrained, climb every mountain and all that hoopla. But maybe, just maybe, limitations and some kind of moderation needs to be set online so that our collective consciousness isn't constantly being attacked by mediocrity, and those who love what they do aren't insulted on a regular basis by hackneyed jobs presented with beaming, smiling faces. Seriously ... let's set some standards, folks.