Ask HN: Advice for hiring a designer for my side project

During the current times of quarantine I've taken it upon myself to experiment with a handful of simple / clever direct to consumer concepts. The niches I selected reflect my quirky hobbies but there seems to be some interest.

I've had varying success creating a following via instagram and using some tricks to tailor ad spends and campaigns. But now, I'm realizing that having solid branding and design is a HUGE factor in all of this.

I'd like to hire a designer to help with some package design, logo design and basic graphical elements. Not a full stop web-designer or UI person.

I've found some artists / designers on Dribbble but I'm unsure of the best way to reach out or go about articulating what I want and settling on a fair price. I've done this in the past with a industrial designer from Prague and although his work was fantastic, I had a hard time articulating what I liked / disliked and spent a solid amount of $$$. (for reference, he was one of the designers who worked on weapons design for Star Citizen. I was working on a bespoke 21700 powered USB-C power bank at the time)

Any advice is appreciated, stay safe everyone!