Did you develop your own migrations system?
Regarding a designer, you could ask in the cakephp google group, maybe there is someone with design skills who wants to help.
First time here, but your name sounds familiar :-) .. I have been trough the Neutrino "concept" .. get a CMS and no fuss around it ..I like it.
Concerning helping, I am not "so good" designer, but more "backbone", I manage quite well cakephp, shells, php and mysql, if this can help ...
I also know some "better than me" even "good" designers .. I'll pass the word, and will be up to them ..
Cheers