board customization options?

[christensen]

Hello all. I am trying to put a site together for a local college alumni group's private use. I have outlined a draft of the site on ezboards (at CharlotteDeacs.com) but as I do more research I am finding that perhaps I should switch to vbulletin from the start.

I don't want to go overboard on graphics but I do want it to look nice. Basically, I want the name of the site at the top and a discrete link to the site sponsor. I also want to generally follow a black and gold color scheme, similar but perhaps a little nicer than what I have already.

I was not smart enough to accomplish this on ezboards so I doubt that I will be able to do it on vbulletin. I was wondering if folks could give me a sense for how hard it will be for a non-tech person to customize the board as described above. Perhaps more realistically, I am also curious if there are people that do this kind of task for a fee and how much I might expect to pay for such services.

Finally, will I need to find someone to host the site?

Thank you all for your help.

Christensen