It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic,
Of all things physical and metaphysical,
Of all things human and all things super-human,
Of all true manifestations of the head,
Of the heart, of the soul,
That the life is recognizable in its expression,
That form ever follows function. This is the law.
-- Louis Sullivan, Architect, 1896

I have noticed that most people, when pondering a new website, begin by looking at ready made templates, other people's websites (many of which were made from ready-made templates), settle on one with their own unique modifications (such as logo), and then try to fit what they want to do into that pre-defined format.

I suggest that the opposite approach may prove more fruitful.  Start with your data and your purpose.  What do you want to do?  Share information?  Do you have a large database of inventory or information you wish to present in a friendly way?  Do you wish to write often?  Do you have a lot of pictures you want to show?  What is your main intent?  Once you have defined what it is you want to do, think about how your information could be best presented.   You might need dynamically generated charts and graphs based on your data, or you might need a shopping system, or a blog format.

After you have defined your purpose, and decided on what you want to present, how, you can accessorize and emphasize with a coherent design.  It is very important for the programmer, who makes things go, work very closely with the designer, who makes things look right.

I posted a question on a list I participate in and this is the conversation so far. I thought the discussion had some useful information, so I'm posting it with Ed's permission:

Does anyone here have any opinions about QuickForm, the PEAR package? I am using it in a fairly big way right now, that is, the app I'm writing using QuickForm will serve as a checkout form to a store application and there are many stores which will be using it. I've used it here and there on other projects and I've worked on a project where it was the technology of choice for form construction, but I've never run across any opinions about it.

My opinion is that it is quite good, and I don't understand why it seems to be used very rarely. Maybe there's something wrong with it I just don't see. Or maybe it's just sort of obscure.

Peggy

When you create a presence on the web, you can't just pull the parts out of a box, glue it together with the language of your choice, publish, and then stand back and admire it.

It's more like going to war.  You want to be well armed, and have a battle plan, but when things get gritty, you have to be able to morph with the circumstances, improvise, and be willing try out the most cutting edge whiz kid state of the art weaponry when the opportunity presents itself.

Whatever you do, you don't want to kill bystanders.  You need to know enough about server technology to stay out of the way of the core of things, but if you need to make some adjustments, you need to have that knowledge as part of your kit.