Thanks for the responses. I guess, being new to the idea of specializing in design, I wanted to get a sense of the general wisdom. There's a lot I don't know and I'm a bit of a stranger to the design community.
Scrivs: Thanks for the seed. Bringing something new to the table started my wheels turning. Not that I'm likely to reach such a destination, but now that I've got one, I can enjoy the journey if you know what I mean.
TH3_BRAIN: I think the myspace comparison is apt in my case. I'm too specialized and for sure one of the reasons I gravitate toward Blogger is they handle some of the more technical and mundane aspects of running a website (hosting, db back up, optimization, etc).
» Can I call myself a web designer? ... Last Reply: 7 months ago by archangelchuck.
Oli & archangelchuck: Thanks for the honesty. I can handle it. FWIW, the IOZ blog's base inspiration was http://abduzeedo.com/ (who has since changed his theme). The color scheme drifted a bit because some of IOZ's regular readers complained about readability. Perhaps it drifted too much. As for the sparseness of that particular design, IOZ wanted the emphasis to be on his content, so my goal was to give him a functional but custom Blogger design that wasn't a radical departure from what he and his readers were used to nor a distraction from his writing.
The fringetv blog is a work in progress. Not that you can't tell where it's going, but the finished product should be somewhat better.
As for the reason I asked, tweaking Blogger blogs is enjoyable to me. Spending a lot of time in the blogspot universe I see there is a lot of need for individuality. While I'm not a pro at Photoshop, I've learned a thing or two. The same goes for css and all the other elements that come into play when figuring how to get something to look or work the way you want it. So sure, I need more experience in every aspect of design and development, but then I have a mountain more experience than 90% of the people using blogspot. And those are the individuals who I would cater to, not companies and no contracts. Just individuals who love their blogspot blogs and want to separate them from the herd.