[ajug-members] Seeking web app advice

[Kerry Randolph]

*Disclaimer: This question is from a student and amateur software
development enthusiast, not a professional. The thoughts expressed herein
may be vacantly silly and completely out of any context. Hopefully not.*

I am developing a web application as a personal project that I hope to open
up to public use some day. To this end, based on recommendations from
members of this group, I have read Bruce Eckel's "Thinking In
Java"<http://www.mindview.net/Books/TIJ/>and have taken Sang
Shin's Java EE Course <http://www.javapassion.com>. Following this great
advice, most of the design pieces are beginning to come together now, from
the persistence architecture, to JSF libraries like JBoss Richfaces, to
JavaScript libraries like JQuery, Dojo, and JMaki.

So I am getting a pretty good grip on the Model and Controller pieces of the
architecture, but what about the view? Millenials are attracted to sexy page
design <http://aviary.com/> and if this thing is ugly no one will use it. I
don't own photoshop. I play around with GIMP <http://www.gimp.org> whenever
I really must, but I am not an artist. Even if I had interest in being an
artist, who has the time?

What are the options for a programmer when it comes to page design? Should I
bite the bullet, learn the basics, and try to churn out the view on my own?
Or are there page designers out there who would contract a small project and
work with me as requirements develop?

Java community, your experienced advice on this matter is greatly
appreciated.
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