Nothing beats being recognised by industry peers, it serves as a great motivation for me to continue pushing myself further.

My portfolio site's current incarnation celebrated its one-year anniversary a while ago, and during its early launch period it was featured in a few css galleries which I was already over the moon about. However lately, on a second wind, it is being featured in several high profile sites:

• Smashing Magazine – 10 Steps To The Perfect Portfolio Website
• Web Designer's Wall – 50 minimal sites
• Japanese newspaper Nikkei, and a couple of Japanese design blogs: Rostrata & 9zaku
• An Italian web design blog
• Designm.ag – 101 awesome portfolio sites
• Web designer depot – 10 Characteristics of Excellent Portfolio Sites
• Fuel Your Creativity – Typography is sexy (III)

Am passionate about typography and set out the design of my portfolio to be strongly minimalistic and type-based, which I thought would not be well-received by a mass audience as people tend to go for visual richness. I am also well-aware that my site does not look too good on a Windows machine without anti-aliasing (font-smoothing) turned on. Nevertheless I wanted to push some boundaries and demonstrate that a site can look great with carefully used type and almost pure code without much imagery. I am glad I stuck to my beliefs, as I knew that there will always people who'll appreciate it the way I do, even if a handful.

It is the law of attraction at play here I guess, because the way the site is designed, it does attract potential clients who appreciates design the way I do, and no words can describe how helpful that is to me.

Today, just for this moment, I allow myself to be in pride of my work, especially with the recognition of some of my peers – I thank you from the bottom of my heart, you people have no idea how much it means to me.

Niche or not

The subjects that I had planned to write were pretty niche and specific, the problem lies with the range of topics. I wanted to write about the lessons I've learned while freelancing, design ideas, my spiritual awakening and growth, my interest in astrology, the important epiphanies I had in my life.

People who want to read about the practical side of my writing – the freelancing experiences – may not appreciate my thoughts on spirituality, and vice versa. Ultimately I decided to go for the all-in-one route, because practically I knew it would be difficult for me to maintain separate blogs, but more importantly, I wanted to paint the whole, entire picture of what I've gone through.

It is difficult for me to write about how I overcame my struggles without involving my spiritual awakening, or how I applied spiritual concepts to cope with my difficulties while freelancing. They're intricately related, and they wouldn't be unique experiences if they are purposely kept separate.

The potential for religious backlash

To write about my take on spirituality, I was worried that there will be people who have strong religious beliefs getting upset about the spiritual views I express. The simple statement that I believe in God but not in any particular organized religion might be enough to cause outrage. Or that I believe in karma and reincarnation. However, I weighed the pros and cons, eventually I decided that as long as I set my intentions to be positive, and hope that my readers keep an open mind and respect my views, everything will turn out fine.

Being true, the exposure & my business

I'm a professional designer offering my services to a wide-variety of clientele, both locally and internationally. To truly share my past experiences equates to me having to be true and honest, even if it means writing about the pain, or bits of my past that I probably shouldn't talk about openly. I am not sure how my exisiting or potential clients will feel if they happen to read about my depressive past or my spiritual views.

Yet I have chosen the uncomfortable route, because I know that it may benefit many others by sharing my experiences openly. That alone should be more important than worrying about how some people would react. I am simply being who I am, and I guess I trust my clients to be open-minded enough, if not, then I guess there's nothing much I can do. One thing I've learned is that there's bound to be some people unhappy with what you do no matter what, and you cannot spend your entire life pleasing everyone.

Inspired by

I would like to give thanks to two very courageous and strong women among many others – Jaime Mintun & Patricia Singleton – whose efforts to write openly about their past painful experiences in an effort to share and heal with others, gave me the inspiration and strength to share mine. I've been wanting to do this for a long time, but never felt whether it was right, or rather, I was not sure if I had the guts, and having the opportunity to read these two blogs gave me the sign I was waiting for. Reading their blogs made me feel that the strength needed to be open about myself, was nothing compared to the courage they have shown.

Now that I'm a much happier person and I've somehow found meaning in life, the least I can do to give back, is to share my thoughts, experiences that I've accumulated and still accumulating in my constant evolution as a person.

I am pretty much an internet addict and I love to read, I have a innate curiosity, and all these propel me to keep a constant look out for books, articles, blogs that inspire me, provide a good source of information or shed some light on intriguing issues. I have benefited from those that I have read, and I thought it would be really great if I can share my discoveries with people who might benefit from them as well.

With these two intentions in mind, I've been feeling an urgency to start writing and sharing. I am not sure if this might be my calling, but I know from my heart and soul that this is something that I must do.

And so it begins.