Think Like A Geeky Poet
I like to think of Web design and development as a really complicated, computer-generated form of poetry. With haiku, sonnets, and the like, poets must give care to meter and stress and syllable. Ask any poet and he'll tell you that those limitations can improve a poem. Using a medium's limits lend discipline and structure. Working in a framework can be liberating. Because instead of reinventing the wheel, a poet can focus on what's really important: Crafting a work of art.
The same is true with websites. The best advice I can give is, "Adhere to the conventions, adhere to the standards, and let your creativity flow around them."
Instead of iambic pentameter, web designers put search boxes in the upper right-hand corner. It's the same idea as a 5-7-5 syllabic structure, just a radically different outcome.
Too often, though, people I talk to confuse "standards" with "templates." So I tell them to think like a poet. The limitations are there because of the medium you're working in, but that's no reason to look like the guy down the block. As with poetry, you need to be a little analytical to understand the math. But you need to be a little creative in order to make it sing.
So scrap that e-brochure (it's so 1996, anyway) and start thinking about your website like a poem: fluid, living, a vision with balance and structure.
— Matthew Foster, web designer + playwright, Chez Pixel, www.chezpixel.com