Website template for financial company ($150 contest)

I am a freelance web developer, requiring a designer to add a professional graphics touch to a preliminary website design that I have started on. The idea is there, I just need some fine-tuning.

http://www.ddtc.co.za

Tagline:
not required, maybe someting like: Independent Investment Consultant OR Independent Investment, Retirement, & Financial Consultant

Desired Color Scheme:
dark navy blue, white, a splash of a rich darkish red for contrast

Desired Style:
Clean, professional, personal - the design should convey an established, trustworthy feel.

Accepted File Formats:
layered photoshop (psd)

I have started on the redesign of a website for a financial services company, but require a graphic designer to work on my design, as I am more of a developer than a designer. I think the idea is there, but it lacks professional graphical design elements. Maybe it's too squeaky clean, and requires a very minimal 'grunge' effect. I don't really know...Any ideas are welcome.

You can find a jpeg sample of the preliminary design at: http://www.ddtc.co.za/ddtc_layout.jpg

This site requires a clean, professional, trustworthy look and feel. Black/dark text on white background is preferred. If you go to http://www.ddtc.co.za you'll get an idea of the current site content. The most important part is the news room, which will contain articles/presentations etc (in a blog type layout). The design has to allow for sub navigation as well.

Navigation has to be text-based, so nothing too elaborate/fancy. I would prefer the navigation on the right. No top navigation. Sub-navigation will be required (which will be coded in the form of nested lists, and styled with CSS). I'm open to any ideas, so let me know if you have anything else in mind.

Images:

businessman/boardroom image: http://www.ddtc.co.za/ties2export.jpg (this is a low quality jpeg, i will provide the vector image once I have decided on a winner). Let me know if you the image quality is too low to work with.

logo (the spiral, with the company name - very simple): http://www.ddtc.co.za/logo.png (this is a layered fireworks png image. I don't have a high quality logo image at the moment. If you want to change anything, you can do a temporary simple recreation. The logo can either be white on dark blue or dark blue on white. The current site has another variation of the logo.)

Below are feedback/comments that would help new entries:

#1

I am willing to buy images/art from http://www.istockphoto.com or http://www.123rf.com, so just let me know if you need anything.

#2

What would be nice is if there could be 'info'/'alert' boxes (don't know what you call them) below the intro article, or somewhere... (maybe 2 or 3 next to each other). It should be something eye catching, for info about new articles/content, affiliate banner (doesn't have to be as big as the wine banner on the current homepage, can be any size), site news etc. On the current ddtc homepage, there are 3 such boxes, below each other though, but very very boring!

Another thing: I would appreciate it if entrants could lay out the text in 'blog' format, with one or two content items. Dummy text is fine, and there doesn't have to be much text. The way in which content is going to be displayed on the new website is going to be more in a blog type format.

#3

Just a general comment about the 'minimal grunge effect' that I mention in my brief:

What I mean by minimal grunge, is to break up the rigid 2 column boxed looked, by using design elements. The spiral theme of the logo can be used to get this effect. (I know the spiral is quite 'corny', but it doesn't have to be used exactly like that.) Have a look at these designs from csszengarden:
http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=135/135.css
http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=083/083.css

They have a totally different look than this design requires, but I think it illustrates what I'm trying to say. Both designs have fixed boxes laid out, but the rigidness of the boxes are disguised via design elements. Also note the way the navigation headings is designed. Very professional, not just a heading with a plain background color.