I like the new version much better but I’m not crazy about this design either.
I think it would look better if you replaced the orange with the green and got rid of the blue links. Also, the mixing of sans and serif fonts in this way doesn’t look right in my opinion. Try to keep your fonts to one or two and build a consistent hierarchy.
I have been trying to design good looking sites, but looks like everytime I sit on my desk, I get a creativity blockage. Maybe I just don’t have creativity. Sometimes I go to sites where they sell awesome looking templates, and I try to imitate one of the templates, and I can’t come up with one as good as those.
How can I learn DESIGN? I mean, I know Photoshop, HTML, CSS. But my designs tend to be very boxy. How do you come up with good ideas and put it into practice. I have seen some of your sites and some are awesome. How do you guys do it?