[AlexanderT]

Heh I also hate making skins. It is not the programming/template part that I despise, but the designing part itself.

I have a lot of respect for web designers who manage to design a COHERENT-looking, professional webpage. It is easy to create a nice looking button with Photoshop, or perhaps a gradient for category headers, but it is very difficult to integrate everything to make it look like one piece. Trust me, I tried many times to become "creative" - but failed miserably at the end.

Also, 13th disciple said an important thing: a good designer must be able to "translate" what I am looking for. I think this is the scary part, if you don't know the designer well that you are going to hire. Well you can say something like "I like the way Corey designed webhostingtalk.com", and with a lot of luck the designer is going to deliver something that looks alike, and is yet unique.

Alex