Your marketing is like "What shirt will I wear today?" Your brand is like "Who am I as a person?" Both influence how you're perceived, but one changes way more often.

You are supposed to love them equally, but everyone has their favorite.

Your work is like a movie.
Your portfolio is like a documentary about that movie.
Your website is like an ad for that documentary.

Brands are like an orchestra. Inconsistent instruments (touchpoints not playing their parts properly) stand out like sore thumbs and can ruin the entire performance.

On mobile devices, some websites are like hyperlink minefields. One wrong move and the article you were reading is gone.

Website visual design isn't like package design, it's like designing a shelf of packages. There are multiple audiences with multiple goals and tasks to accomplish with your products (content).

Judging a brand by it's logo is like judging a book by its cover. A brand is the sum of all its touchpoints, like the book is a sum of all its chapters. There's a story which brands tell, which you can't experience from the logo alone.

Your logo is like your face, your strategy is like your brain and your Vis ID is like your clothing.

are like the chicken and the egg.
(You decide which is which.)

Ideas are like leaves. Some stay and hang around until it's time for change, and others fall off and get blown away.

Design by committee is like death by 1000 cuts.

Creative ideas are like little volcanic eruptions. There's really no telling when they will happen, what they may spill onto or where the ash will fly.

Having a video or animation running on a web page with no user control is like trying to find your wallet while the phone keeps ringing. It's just annoying.

Thinking that a freelance developer will remember your specific project over time is like thinking you can remember every hamburger you've ever eaten.

Sitting down to design a brand is like sitting down to write a book.

A logo or brand identifier with no real meaning or relationship to the positioning is like a beauty mark. Pure decoration.

is like wearing a hat, sunglasses and a mustache to change your appearance, it's overly conspicuous and looks silly.

Having tons of text and no imagery to help scanability on a web page is like having a library where all the book covers are the table of contents.

Having a website full of text modules with no visual hierarchy is like opening 6 books to random pages and saying, "read this".

Good project managers would make great traffic cops.

Playing offense is about making a design good. Defense is about making it right.

Changing the location of the navigation throughout a site is like placing your faucet on a different wall every time you want to take a shower.

It must advertise, differentiate, and also be usable.

Creative is an adjective, not a noun.