Kyro - I think it's ridiculous that people are so possessive of free design concepts, but one cool blog post to take a look at is Metalab's theoretical redesign of the Zappos homepage few year's back: http://metalabdesign.com/zappos/
They do a pretty nice job of explaining why and what they did - might be a nice framework if you're planning on justifying your decisions.
I personally find these designs more "fun to look at" than anything - it's always cool to see what and how someone who isn't a part of the day to day sees a product as. To me, these designs are just a super detailed pieces of user feedback. Keep going at it!
That page does mention some good design principles, then proceeds to just throw a couple gradients and Gotham on a Photoshop mockup. The HN thread about it discussed at length why it's a weak redesign.
They do a pretty nice job of explaining why and what they did - might be a nice framework if you're planning on justifying your decisions.
I personally find these designs more "fun to look at" than anything - it's always cool to see what and how someone who isn't a part of the day to day sees a product as. To me, these designs are just a super detailed pieces of user feedback. Keep going at it!