I was showing off some of my recent work to a friend, and he commented "It doesn't look like a [certain CMS] site at all!".

I take that as very high praise – I want the sites I build to be visually self-consistent, cohesive. No matter how good your CMS, if your site looks like a [some CMS here] site, then I don't believe your audience is seeing "you" in the site.

In the weblog world we talk a lot about your readers needing to hear your "voice" in the writing. I think voice is one of the most important aspects of powerful web-based communication. At the same time, I'm re-discovering the power of the first impression.

My goal with the design work I'm doing right now is to create a conduit for that voice that is 1) visually impacting, and 2) conducive to allowing that voice to be heard.