

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

I'm wondering what techniques you've used to find good designers for your projects.<p>I've tried Craigslist, but ended up with a lot of spam and a lot of ... let's say not very experienced designers.<p>I've tried various well known designers, but the costs very quickly become very high.<p>I've tried oDesk with some limited success - much better than the local craigslist crowd - but nothing I was thrilled with.<p>Is there a way to find reasonably priced designers who are actually good? What's the secret?
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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.

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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.

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jacquesm
I'm sorry, I did not mean to suggest that would be applicable to you.

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scottkrager
You haven't mentioned any of the crowd-sourced design sites:

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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).

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tworats
Out of curiosity, where the designers US based or abroad somewhere?

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joshklein
Croatia

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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lovskogen
What job do you want done?

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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.

