While I'm quite terrible at design (I'm a coder, if anything at all), when I do end up designing websites, the first step is sitting back and figuring out what

While I'm quite terrible at design (I'm a coder, if anything at all), when I do end up designing websites, the first step is sitting back and figuring out what I really want: what kind of content will go there, who's the expected audience, what are my priorities (display speed, download size, bling, you name it). Once I have that down, it's a lot easier to figure out a design. It's either pen & paper, but I can't recall the last time I actually drew a design on paper (I'm even worse at hand drawing than I am at design), or I fire up a tool I can make a mockup with: gimp, inkscape, dia - either works, and it depends on how detailed or how quick I want the mockup. Once that's done, I convert it into HTML + CSS, and sprinkle it with javascript magic if so need be. Meanwhile, since I do design iterations in bursts, more than likely, I will have the backend code ready aswell, and I will only need to convert the mockup to a template, and done.