In general, the rule about getting what you pay for stands true. Of course there are always exceptions to this rule, but I'd say they're few and far between.

In general, the rule about getting what you pay for stands true. Of course there are always exceptions to this rule, but I'd say they're few and far between. If I was in your position (which I have been) I would do the following. 99designs for a logo (great suggestion by tptacek), cssmania for design/concept direction, adobe kuler for color palette, then use CSSEdit for Mac and learn to lay out your design. If, at the end of the day you really have no design skills you can always consider using something like templatemonster or just hire a company/designer that is good. It will cost you, but you can probably negotiate a lot of things. Just be honest and let them know your budget, but plan to have the design (psd likely) converted by psdtohtml or a like service (depending on what you're doing will cost ~$200-300 for a basic conversion) because in most cases it's cheaper to have a service do this rather than a designer. If you're comfortable with it, I would post up the url and maybe there's someone here who'd be willing to work with you. You never know. Good luck and have a great weekend!