Web design is an art. It takes skill, creativeness and vision.

Twin Cipher just got a face lift and I believe the new site design is a great example of this.  Many times, people or companies want to stuff a home page with every possible link, piece of information and picture, so that it is immediately available to the user. The problem with sites such as these, they're often intimidating, hard to navigate and important information is either hard to find or becomes lost due to information overload.

A recent article in the New York Times quotes Paul Saffo about the way Steve Jobs aka (Apple) embraces "design constraint"

“A defining quality of Apple has been design restraint”

Design: A web site should be pleasing to look at, easy to navigate and have the most important information users want at their finger tips. Outside of drilling for content or archived articles, users should be able find what they want within one to two clicks.  Search is a necessity, not an optional feature. 

Search: Every user should be able to find anything on your site in one of two ways, easy navigation, or a clever search widget.  If using your site is more like a day in the office, it's likely the user will leave your site with a bad impression.

White Space: White space is one aspect of web site design that is commonly overlooked and sometimes not even considered. Having separation between blocks of content, navigation, images and headlines is very important.  It gives every "item" it's own identity.  When white space is limited, items appear to blend in with each other giving the site a stuffed look and making it hard for users to determine where the separation is. Giving each piece of content or media it's own "room" allows users to clearly see the structure an separation of items.