

Ask HN: German considering hiring a US designer (remote), got some questions - codesuela

Hey HN,
I am considering hiring a US based freelance designer and have some questions about that:<p>1) I am willing to pay a reasonable but not excessive amount so I think wont be able to find someone from LA or NYC due to the cost of living there, which alternative cities/states would you suggest?<p>2) Where would you suggest I start looking? Elance, Odesk, 99 designs and designcrowd seem to be populated by Indian people providing discount services. As I am not looking for cheap but reasonably priced and skilled labor which is why I am extending my search to the US.<p>3) What would be a reasonable rate for remote work for a US based designer outside of the Bay area and NYC?<p>Any answers would be much appreciated.
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damoncali
1) The city does not matter. At all. Go by price and portfolio quality. Don't
assume that designers in NYC and SF will automatically charge more. I used to
live in a market where developers are in demand (Austin) and now I don't
(Omaha). Guess what? My rates have gone up recently.

2) I would use google to search for "[US tech city] web designer" and browse
portfolios online. Where [US tech city] is SF, Austin, Boston, NYC, Denver,
LA, Portland, Seattle - it really doesn't matter - just pick a big city
starting with the above.

I know some folks who have had some unbelievably good luck (repeatedly) using
Odesk, even with US based designers. $300 for a website design kind of luck.
There is a bit of a hassle in finding the good, cheap designers, but at $300,
you can afford to miss a few times.

3) In my experience designers are all over the map in terms of rate, and rate
is not a good indicator of quality. I've seen decent work from $25-125/hour or
more, while most seem to settle around $85/hour. Don't be afraid of fixed
price. It _may_ cost more, but at least you know. Typically, it seems a basic
web design - an overall theme (3 to 4 pages) will cost between $1,000 and
$3,000.

4) Do not hire an agency. They are one of two things - a) very expensive b)
very expensive and very bad.

The bottom line is to ask around for referrals, and review their work. I've
yet to meet a designer who can come up with a wide variety of styles that look
good. Usually, their work has a distinct feel to it (like an artist) and
you're going to be stuck with that, so you better do your homework and like
it.

And finally, my email is in my profile - I can recommend a good one in Austin.

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mjn
On question #2, HN has a monthly freelancer thread:
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5304173>

If you're willing to put in some effort to pursue an approach with low
signal/noise-ratio, you could pick some random cities and post ads in
Craigslist's gigs section, e.g. <http://chicago.craigslist.org/web/>. That
will tend to get you a lot of small-time freelancers of varying quality, many
of them art-school students and similar. If that's what you want you can get
some great deals (at the cost of a lot of time spent filtering).

If you're looking for more established design firms, rather than Craigslist
you might just try web searches with a city name appended, for stuff like [st.
louis web design firm]. Will also require a bit of filtering to find something
you like, but from a different starting pool.

Rates _really_ vary, partly depending on what you mean by design. More
technical designers who also do some coding tend to cost more, for example.
Designers who have a good network and high visibility cost a lot more,
especially anyone whose portfolio includes big-name web properties. Since the
discovery problem is quite difficult (as you seem to be noticing), the
price/quality curve is imo very inconsistent, with some great designers
working cheaply because they don't have good networks or marketing, and some
not-so-great ones charging a lot, because they're able to bring in so much
work that they can get away with it.

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dynabros
Dribbble.com would be a good starting point for finding a decent designer

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hbg
Check your email @ lavabit.

