First thing I would recommend is embracing your limitations. You can't make pixels look appealing? Fine. Don't design your game around having to impress your audience with eyecandy. As you got coding skills, I would try and put a lot of emphasis on game mechanics, and try to find clever ways to communicate this to the player without having to make it look fancy (remember simplicity can look appealing).
Always approach a game project from the angle of how you can utilize your skillsets the best way possible (and that also works around your weaknesses). Skills that's not necessarily directly related to gaming also apply. Can you write, dance, punch a brick, eat extremely hot food, seduce women like a champ etc.? I bet it's possible to to use your skillsets as a starting point to create great game concepts that doesn't rely on graphics.
As art is my speciality, I'm basing my game a lot around impressive visuals, but i can't write. That's why there's no text what so ever in my game.
I'm not a super good coder either, that's why I stick to very simplistic gameplay mechanics that doesn't rely on any low level programming skills etc. As I'm very concious about my limitation, and I base every design decision on how they compliment my strengths (simplistic game mechanics and visuals). I'm convinced this will turn out to a good game in the end.
However in your case, I would still recommend looking up basic color theory. Just basic things like blue and orange go well together, different shades of grey on a black and white canvas can work, golden ratio etc. will do wonders for your game's presentation.
Hope this was helpful.