

Ask HN: Where do you go for adhoc/freelance design resource? - britman

Hi all<p>We're hitting a stage in our product development where we're looking for some design work to be done (layouts, icons etc) and I was just wondering if anyone has any recommended design/ux specific sites (like elance.com for example) that they have used to get bits and pieces done??<p>TIA
======
fjabre
For icons just do a search on google for icon libraries. Some are free and
some others are cheap for what you get.

Do not pay for custom icon design unless you absolutely need to.

For site design your best bet is to look at CSS galleries. Tons of designers
put their portfolios up there.

Also check out deviantart.com for a huge selection of freelance art.

Be forwarned that good designers are usually very busy and/or very expensive.
A lot of overseas designers are pretty decent and a little cheaper
(Asia/Eastern Europe). In 10 years as a programmer Ive had better luck finding
top coders than top designers.

------
replicatorblog
<http://coroflot.com> can be a great resource. Also, if you are near an art
school you can find a lot of great/affordable talent there.

------
donw
Talk to the people in the art/graphics design department at your local
university. There's a big pool of talent there that is (a) affordable, and (b)
starting out, just like you. So you'll be helping somebody else with their
career, and may find someone who you can bring in-house as a designer once
they graduate.

At the very least, you'll know someone 'in the industry' who has a very
positive impression of you (and your company), and who can pass talent to you
down the road.

~~~
arnorhs
That's actually the very best thing the poster can do.. but probably not the
kind of answer the poster was looking for...

~~~
jmorin007
Just keep in mind that while a lot of artists are able to create some great
looking designs, many are not versed in human cognition and user interface
design concepts. You may end up with a great looking interface which is
largely unusable, or at least irritating to use on a regular basis. If you're
going to go down this route, make sure that someone on your team has a good
grasp on UI/UX basics in order to vet the designs that are proposed and
suggest changes as needed.

------
danspodcast
I use odesk.com. Its especially useful if you have a lot of smaller tasks
since you can develop relationships with freelancers via the project mgmt tool
that tracks their time and manages payment.

------
georgekv
CrowdSpring is another nice option in my experience.

<http://www.crowdspring.com/>

------
Kollner
I used <http://www.crowdspring.com/> with success.

------
britman
Appreciate all the responses. Will check out the suggestions!!!

------
bdmac97
I used 99designs.

~~~
cunninglinguist
I second 99designs.com.

In fact, I will go so far as to say this: most design projects should begin
with a contest at 99designs.

There are reasons for this: you get to see a large sample set of competing
designs rather than being restricted to whatever designs the neural pathways
of your dedicated designer can come up with. You go with 99designs in order to
see 100 designs (or 500) sitting on a page. After that, you take one or two
designs and you run with them. In my opinion this is bar none the most
effective way to start any design project. Make 99designs.com your first step
as it gives you a breadth of design options. Then choose one and work on depth
and polish.

~~~
britman
Yeah I'm liking the look of 99 Designs, especially as you say the fact you get
a broad range of initial designs which gives you a nice perspective on the
directions possible.

