56503441@N002006-03-29
To the great frustration of my instructors over the years, I never do roughs of any sort, preferring to just jump in and work things out as I go.
The last major design I made for my site, however, I did an actual Photoshop mockup, and actually stuck to it. I imagine it turned out better than the rest of my stuff, but it's hard to say. I'm happy with it, though, and that's all that really matters.
As far as the design itself: I really like what you've got going, with the muted colour scheme. I'm a bit curious as to why your content area is so empty, though. Do you plan on having a sidebar of some sort? I like the whitespace it gives, but the student in me wants to cram something in there. In the end, I think I prefer it open.
As another thought, providing some sort of explanation for your tag cloud may be helpful. I suppose it would depend on what kind of people you expect to have visiting your site.