Web site design - help?

[#1]

Hi guys,
I don't know if you saw my post yesterday, but one of my new jobs is to produce a website for my company - the last one was never developed and as such as now been taken down.
Our company supplies consumables to the Industrial sector (Rail, Road Maintance, Construction etc).
My knowledge of Web Design is very limited at the moment, my question is what is the easyest way to design a site that looks quite good and that can show my Company's range of products off?
I've had a look at Dreamwever - learning curve seemed a little steep for hitting the ground running - I've done a video course on Joomla - now this is more up my street, but the design side of creating a layout seems limited - I've looked at some templates from "Rocket Theme" and they look good, but they are too "down with the kids" - if you know what I mean!!
What do people suggest I look at (and don't say getting it done by someone else!!)
Help,
BBJ

[#2]

Quote from: bigbadjon

and don't say getting it done by someone else

Darn. 
I think your idea of going with a CMS is probably a good one, particularly if a number of people will need to contribute to the content or if it may become someone else's job in a couple of years. There are all sorts of templates and add-ons for Joomla but if you can't find a combination that suits, other CMSs are available.
Gabe

[#3]

Try Wordpress, lots of designs and layouts many of which are free. Relatively easy to set up some of the better themes allow you to edit them quite easily. You can have all fixed pages or a blog type setup or a combination of both.
Cheers
John

[#4]

I'm going to throw the drupal hat in to the ring, because its feeling left out.

[#5]

You might also want to consider the free, or at least cheaper, alternatives to Dreamweaver as well. Try Kompozer, or xara. There are plenty of free website templates around, although most of them ask you to put some sort of credit on anything you do with them. Try here, for example.