Not taking "for a first" into account, I believe that it deserves 1 or 2.
Here are some opinions:
. Using only grey is a common mistake between the beginners who enjoy "dark personality". Honestly, in my humble opinion, grey is neutral. There is no personality in the lack of colours and/or contrast unless you can play well with shapes. Forget the standards you know. Grey, black and white can make an elegant page, but they force you to add personality with other resources than colours;
. Avoid cliché techniques if they do not help on making your page originally beautiful: glass, reflections, lens flare
, bevel.. These techniques are dangerous. If you do not use them correctly, your website will look very ugly or like it was made by a typical Power Point (
eew) user (ugly);
. Avoid overused symbols: orbits, gears, balloons, lamps, electronic components, common tools.. Those are examples of overused symbols. They require a very nice work on colours and innovative shape synthesis to look unique.. and they still look cliché.
Here is a quick thing I made for you too see just what colours can do to a page's identity:
The only significant things I changed were colours and contrast. And it already makes a huge difference. That was a good practice for me. In the began obsessed by "dark and grey" too. It looks like a programmers' tendency. There are still many things that can make this site better, though. Have fun learning, and run away from standards. Create.
Cheers.
