Make sure you're using BORDER=0 so that your various items will float rather than being locked into boxes; this will help more than anything else. CELLPADDING will give you more "airspace" around your cell contents.
That said, at this point I'd highly recommend considering using CSS (cascading sytle sheets) rather than tables. CSS pulls the "the page is laid out this way" information into a separate document, while the page is laid out with pretty much the basic tags you know and love - H1, H2, P, B, etc. The CSS Zen Garden and A List Apart are great starting resources; the Zen Garden shows you an amazing number of representations of the same page, restyled by CSS: everything from corporate designs to multiple-panel cartoons. A List Apart is a great collection of articles on doing things with CSS, and links to many other resources. Plus you become majorly more marketable.
There's a fine intro to CSS itself, and some good table tutorials, too, at Webmonkey; links are supplied below. Have fun!
www.alistapart.com
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