For a board as extensively customized as Yaxay or mine (no, I'm not implying that I offer any design services because I don't and never have), it can cost thousands of dollars. However there are sites that offer styles for less. Also it shows more dedication towards your forums to design them yourself.

I would eventually want to customize a board this well but I knew it wasn't going to be a few pennies. ;)

Btw, your board is different and unique as well. I just viewed it.

The other board I found really neat out of the award list was Rapsearch.com.

You know, IMO, forums are one of the best things on the Internet. There are just a variety out there to please almost everyone and cater to almost everything, whether it's fun/recreation, life/living, hobbies, addictions, everything.

Just remember in the end, appearance is irrelevant (although it helped in my case :D). If you build a friendly community, people will come to it like magnets. Most of the comments I get about WDF at WDF is that people like the community and then they mention the style second. Building an ubercool-looking community with horrible members is just a dead site.

Too bad there is no "Get Members" button lying around here... :( ;)