Design is hard, so doing variations on a theme, or formulaic processes to get to a point where you say "I like it, it feels right, and it looks good" is a success. If you can repeat a process like the OP lays out, that's a strong foundation to build a website on.
The identity part comes from the divergence from baseline, and having a good foundation lets you experiment and "craft" easily. Nobody is gonna get a knockout web design in 30 minutes following a tutorial, but you might spend a week or three building on what you do in that first 30 minutes to achieve something unique and stellar.
One trend people probably have noticed is that many brands over the last decade went from a script or serif font to a san-serif.
People also hate "corporate memphis" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_Memphis) which has been a trend for a while (probably on the way out but still used heavily).
There aren't a lot of unique brands out there, and if they have some kind of success they're not likely to be unique for long.
Its like how everything was flat for a bit and now my phone icons are slowly drifting back to gradients