Seth Godin's got another blessedly short entry on a topic I could talk about all day: Fitting In and Standing Out.

Anyone who's worked with me in the last 5 years knows how I feel about this. The goal is to stand out. You have to look at what's going on in your field and do something different. If every software company you see has a conservative blue logo set in Arial Bold Italic, than the one thing you must NOT DO is make your logo blue, Arial Bold Italic, or conservative. It's too hard to make it conservative, blue, Arial BI, and somehow BETTER than your competition. Just steer clear.

The same can be said for websites or brochures or trade show exhibits. The ONE thing you MUST NOT DO is what your competition is doing. Worst case scenario is that you look like an "also-ran." Best case is you look like the better version of them. As far as best-case scenarios are concerned, that's not a great one. In fact, it's pretty poor, because it's damn hard to do.

Designers have, for ages, been preaching the gospel of differentiation. We know that is a big way that design adds value. The problem for designers, and other advocates of standing out, is that people resist it. Hard. There's this part of our subconscious that tells us that standing out is dangerous.

Seth, in his book Linchpin, calls this part of us "the lizard brain." The Lizard Brain is an evolutionary holdover from a time when we weren't at the top of the food chain. It tells us to play it safe, to fit in, to consume more than we need, and to conserve energy by doing as little as possible. In our modern world it doesn't have much to do, so it causes apathy, obesity, procrastination, and perfectionism. In short, it produces fear of things that cannot do us real harm.

The real problem with the Lizard Brain is that we all have it, and fall prey to it every day, even when we know it, it's hard to shake. As a designer, I am well aware of the Lizard Brain. I am well aware of the power it holds. I am aware of the negative effect it has on my work.

That doesn't make it any less powerful.

All we can do is fight the good fight, beat down the Lizard Brain, and push the good stuff out the door.