Common Design rules or themes for rookies?

I wanted to hear from the community what common rules they are in the UI/graphic design space which I could collate and pass on and share.

My thinking is that if we collated that knowledge we could save someone of the unnecessary hard learning.

What are your top tips?

Mine would be to stand out. Use different colour schemes, change up your layout and try to fit in without breaking every unspoken design rule!

1: solve real problems
2: don’t make it new and different, make it new and better
3: use color and form functionally
4: add surprise
5: login with Facebook :slight_smile: