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Ask HN: How do you find good designers for your projects?

9 points by tworats ↗ HN
I'm wondering what techniques you've used to find good designers for your projects.

I've tried Craigslist, but ended up with a lot of spam and a lot of ... let's say not very experienced designers.

I've tried various well known designers, but the costs very quickly become very high.

I've tried oDesk with some limited success - much better than the local craigslist crowd - but nothing I was thrilled with.

Is there a way to find reasonably priced designers who are actually good? What's the secret?

20 comments

[ 81.0 ms ] story [ 1096 ms ] thread
scottkrager
You haven't mentioned any of the crowd-sourced design sites:

http://99designs.com http://crowdspring.com

tworats
Haven't tried any crow-sourced sites. I have some sort odd of mental block when it comes to these; I should get over it and give it a try.
[deleted]
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knoxos
I look at universities for design students (graduated). I had general good experiences with that way. Another possibility might be to look in eastern europe for offshore design agencies.
tworats
Years ago we connected with an undergrad, paid him well, and he did fantastic work for us. When he graduated we put in several recommendations for him and he ended up doing well. Would love to get into the same situation, but I haven't had much luck finding another student.
jacquesm
I simply tried here and got lucky twice already.

Simply post a 'Looking for a designer' with some basic requirements (job duration, an idea of the scope and your location preferences) and ask for portfolio links.

That'll get you plenty of response.

Make sure you put an email address in the text area of your profile!

One of the issues some people run in to when looking for designers and programmers is that they want to scrape the bottom of the barrel pricewise, but that is going to get you in to a very long period where you'll be looking at stuff that doesn't cut it.

In that case I'd suggest moving 'upmarket' a bit and spend what it's really worth. If you ever get lucky and find that $10 per hour designer or programmer that delivers stellar work let me know.

One that I have no personal experience with but that has a really nice portfolio lives here: http://www.gursimran.com/ , I've spent half a day just looking through her website and flickr album, quite amazing.

--

edited for clarity.

tworats
I'm willing to pay much more than $10 per hour, so long as I find someone good. Maybe I'll try posting here, that's an interesting idea.
jacquesm
I'm sorry, I did not mean to suggest that would be applicable to you.
joshklein
If you just need design (little "d"), it would be hard to recommend anything other than 99designs.com, since you can get dozens of people to do the design work you need on spec, at effectively no cost to you, then pick the best (or none at all).

If you need Design (big "D"), then you get what you pay for, and you should be going with established, known quantities like an identity/brand specialized design agency. They do cost a lot of money, but that's because Design (big "d") is very hard.

The difference is that Design (big "D") is about strategy and communication, whereas design (little "d") is about drawing and coloring. Sometimes you need one, sometimes you need the other, and sometimes you need both.

tworats
I'm looking for little "d", but with good drawing and coloring. Haven't tried 99designs, that might be a good way to go. Ideally I'd like to have a long term relationship so we can keep going back to the same person as new needs arise.
joshklein
What I did was set up a logo contest for $400, then personally messaged 30-40 designers whose portfolios I liked on the site to ask them to participate. Once I saw enough good stuff, I guaranteed the contest (meaning I would definitely pick a winner), and asked people for modifications. That part is key; you want to find out not just which piece of design you like, but who is a good person to work with.

Moving forward, I actually ended up working with the person who won the contest AND another person who was very good, but just happened to be the wrong person for this particular design. Once they've done good work for you through 99designs, there is no reason you can't work directly together on future projects. I suspect that's part of the reason designers use the site (although many of them are also from countries where the dollar is highly valuable).

tworats
Out of curiosity, where the designers US based or abroad somewhere?
lovskogen
What job do you want done?
tworats
Redesign of our homepage and a few informational pages, which should be fairly straight-forward design work, and design of the product interior pages as well, which will require more thought on usability, layout, etc.
lovskogen
Sounds like a whole project, running something around 50-75 hours or so. At a hourly rate of $50, I'd say that would be somewhere around $3000-3500.
jeffclark
I know crowdsourced design gets a lot of flack around here, but take a look at crowdspring.com or 99designs.com

I used to work at CS (as a dev), so I got to see a lot of entries.

You can get some good work for way less than an independent designer would charge. Some buyers ended up establishing relationships with designers they liked, too.

serverdude
I am in the same bind. I am wondering what a decent rate for a good design is. I need to design two simple pages ("simple" may be subjective.) I have been quoted $400 - just for design - by htmlburger (they seem good). Would you consider that too pricey?
lovskogen
No, that's not pricey. Consider all the elements that would need to be created to make even one page. Once you have elements in place, you can reuse them on other pages. So the first page has a bigger cost for the designer.