On the one side, Pat Dryburgh argues word-of-mouth is superior to self-advertising: “If the design is good enough, they will ask my clients, and if they like me enough, then they will tell people about me.”

In rebuttal, Sophia Lucero at wisdump.com claims your “designed by” link should be like a Louis Vuitton logo: “Your brand should never hurt your creations, it should enhance them”.

To me, there is an issue of “ownership” to consider. If I put my name on something, I take responsibility for it as much as credit. My name means “I did this, I’m proud of it, and I want to be associated with it.” I think we’ve all done work we’ve left our names off, because we were rushed or a client demanded changes in spite of our best advice or… well, you get the idea: we weren’t proud of it.

So what do you do? Are you a “designed by” designer? Do you stick to code comments? What if you’re a back-end developer?

Edit: I should link Chris Brogan’s series on personal branding. It definitely applies to this question.