Just to avoid confusion I'd like to clear up the reason I wrote this tutorial. The thing is, web design isn't that hard. You can learn it by yourself (as I did

Just to avoid confusion I'd like to clear up the reason I wrote this tutorial. The thing is, web design isn't that hard. You can learn it by yourself (as I did) and you don't even need any artistic talent (I'm a CS major, and can't draw to save my life). Of course if you want to be really good at it, you'll have to put in a lot of work. But the basics are easy to master, and also happen to be the things that make the biggest difference. So it's frustrating to me when I see a site that misses out on something basic like having a grid or using proper-sized fonts. That's why I thought I'd create a step-by-step tutorial that can act as a kind of checklist when you're designing a site. You don't need to follow these step religiously (or even in that order), but I'd advise that you at least consider how each of them could apply to your design. BUT I'm not saying that every site should adopt the same grid and the same boring "Web 2.0" look (I picked that look because it's become somewhat of a standard, for better or for worse), nor am I saying that visual polish is everything. You still need a good product or interesting content behind your site's good looks.