Design for beginners

"Design Principles for Non-Designers" was a great intro to the subject, and perfectly appropriate for a class of students just starting their own web projects. Like lots of great handbooks, the points they make seem obvious, even though we may not have thought of them on our own.

I did a quick run-through of some of the Web sites I frequent to see if they followed the design rules in the article. The convergence homepage is good, although if I may say so myself, the box in the upper-left hand corner doesn't need to be centered. Why not align right? It would enhance the imaginary line going down the left side of the page. But what do I know? I just learned about design today.