You can definitely get away from the standard blog look with custom blog template design today. Most decent custom blog design is being done with psd's created in Photoshop, sliced up and organized and then handed over to a coder to bring the blog functionality to the design. Find a good...
You could also consider using blog software, like Wordpress for your site. It's extremely easy to use even for novices, and you can even buy a theme for it for relatively low cost over at sitepoint.com. If you're willing to get your feet wet a little but not so much that you'd have to learn a...