Howdy, Etrocal here. I'm completly redesigning my site. Right now i'm using iWeb (I know) but I'm working on Pagespinner now. I have Photoshop and Flash 8, but I don't know enough html to make it do anything. If you think you can help, please just PM me.
For phpbb it`s simpler to take an official template and to modify it until you get what you want. But this just works if you don`t want to sell it. Basicly all you need to know is how the template will look. After that you make a design in photoshop .. and from there you take just the parts you need. The hard part is to code all of that, a phpbb/vbuletin theme is a bit chalenging since it has more options than a wordpress/jumla theme.