Access (2010) - basic question

Hi,

I'm really struggling with getting to grips with a very basic aspect of Access and would appreciate your advice.

I'm designing a database which will mostly be concerned with entering, presenting and searching text fields of various kinds. After my training session on Monday I got to work, creating lookups to enable Access to pick up text from other tables in combination with free text fields so that I could construct larger tables from smaller pieces of information - eg name, department, work role etc. But having done this and when I look at the relationships view I see that creating the lookups has already created a web of relationships between the tables. And I've no idea how to develop the database further from this point. I've read that look-ups are not good design practice, and now I'm confused about the practice of table relationships - how to pick information from one table for use in another - eg. a person's name being added to another table about a project. I understand the theory of relationships, primary keys and foreign keys etc. but not how to design something that will enable a user to actually get information from one table to another and how much of this should be done at table level, query level and form/report level? If I can answer this puzzle I think I'm on my way as the course was otherwise clear. I really need to be getting on with this and feeling very frustrated.

Many thanks
Simon