WEB 2.0 IS MORE
than a design style. It's a description of the revolution of social media and user-generated content. It's made it possible for anybody to use a content management system (WordPress anyone?) and become a dot commie.

I'd like to respectfully suggest that I can buy a guitar but it won't make me a musician. Web 2.0 may be described as the rise of the amateur, but I believe there's still room for pros.

FOR 14 YEARS
I've started every Web project the same way. What do you want to say and how do you want to say it?

Once I have that as a baseline from which to work, I bring in the other half of the equation: It's not what you want to say, it's what your customer is looking for, and it's my job to marry those conflicting factors.

The verb "marry" is intentional. Marriage is a mix of things you love and things you have to put up with.

LOTS OF FOLKS
... can draw a Web page that looks pretty, and there are lots of people who can make a better-looking page than I ever will.

Thing is, you can't design in a vacuum. Your design has to balance the needs and priorities of the business and has to maintain the emotional connection to the brand. The design has to work well for search engines and the content has to be organized in a way that's clear to your visitors.

USED TO BE
that people looked at websites as a billboard. Over time, folks understood that sites are more like a telephone -- a conversation.

After more than 300 or so Web projects, when I look at a site nowadays, what I see is a hologram, six different things working at once. There are a number of factors required to make it all work together.

At times I feel more like an orchestra conductor than a magazine designer.

I BELIEVE
you start with two simple things -- a picture that tells a story and a good headline -- and then try to not complicate it from there.

EMAIL: me(at)glmarshall.com