This essay on the ethics of moonlighting designers seems to be making the rounds, and strikes me as completely ignorant of how reputations are built in the web industry.

Full disclosure, I’m a friend and ex-colleague of Luke Wroblewski, a designer at Yahoo whom the author uses as an example of a well-respected web professional, whose personal design consultancy “makes him look flighty and unprofessional” and “makes both his consultancy and Yahoo!’s design practice look a bit dodgy”.

On the contrary, I bet that the existence and maintenance of that very site is part of why Yahoo decided he was right for the job in the first place. The work and thinking contained within the site shows that Luke is aggressive, independent, well-rounded and engaged with the outside world, all qualities I look for and admire in AQ’s small staff. Likewise, as a prospective client of Luke’s, his position at Yahoo combined with his lukew.com presence would give me a pretty good idea of the type and caliber of design problems he’s capable of addressing.

More than ever, people in general create multiple online identities as a way to make themselves easy to find, give the world a more complete understanding of who they are, and attract and maintain interest in what they’re doing. While the writing style of lukew.com may be a bit more corporate than it needs to be, the site essentially acts as one these identities for Luke, and I, for one, am glad that he continues to maintain it. I imagine his employer is too.