Hmm, another viewpoint to add.The other way you can do a layout is to decide where certain "blocks" of content go. Usually you would have a header/footer of some sort that advertises the name of the site, then you have a block which is the navigation bar, where all the links are chained up in a menu, and then you have the main content block, where all the information for that page goes, and then if you want, a small block at the bottom for copyright information and bottom text links.The way I usually come up with interesting layouts is to shuffle these blocks around. I may decide, for example, to put the header/footer block in the middle of the page for impact, and then structure the rest of the blocks around that focal point. Or I might put everything in one straight vertical line, one after the other. Sometimes you can fool around with the blocks themselves too. One of my old designs included a navigation block that wasn't just a list of links, but formed in a way the entire block had a cube of words.Most of the time I design without use of pictures, so it makes the basic layout structure very important. Without an interesting layout, the site would fall apart.