This is an answer to your request for "good places to look" rather than learning user interfaces: I've been curating a list of "clean sites I like the look of"

This is an answer to your request for "good places to look" rather than learning user interfaces: I've been curating a list of "clean sites I like the look of" since '06: http://www.delicious.com/jashmenn/cleansitesilikethelookof http://www.delicious.com/jashmenn/cleansitesilikethelookof