[donw]

Talk to the people in the art/graphics design department at your local university. There's a big pool of talent there that is (a) affordable, and (b) starting out, just like you. So you'll be helping somebody else with their career, and may find someone who you can bring in-house as a designer once they graduate.

At the very least, you'll know someone 'in the industry' who has a very positive impression of you (and your company), and who can pass talent to you down the road.

[arnorhs]

That's actually the very best thing the poster can do.. but probably not the kind of answer the poster was looking for...

[jmorin007]

Just keep in mind that while a lot of artists are able to create some great looking designs, many are not versed in human cognition and user interface design concepts. You may end up with a great looking interface which is largely unusable, or at least irritating to use on a regular basis. If you're going to go down this route, make sure that someone on your team has a good grasp on UI/UX basics in order to vet the designs that are proposed and suggest changes as needed.

[britman]

It's certainly something I will look at, we've got a mix of short term requirements and more longer term so this approach seems to fit nicely with the latter at this point