How to find a good designer?

[JeremyV]

Greetings.

Recently I have had a few customers who are requesting website design. It isn't an advertised service, but in the past I have put together small sites for local businesses and such. But its at the point now where my time is worth much more than what I could charge.

So, I need to start outsourcing the design jobs. There isn't enough work to have a dedicated designer hired, but would like to work with someone who could provide the services when they are needed. I don't want to have to find a different designer every time.

What is the best way to find someone that would fit the bill besides posting on various hosting forums for requested services and such. Maybe a place that has an online display of various designers and their portfolios, or something.

I just don't want to end up with some little snot-nosed brat who gets templates from templatemonster or elsewhere, claims they are their own and resells them :fork: It needs to be legit custom work that either myself and the designer or the customer and the designer would work together in creating a design.

[James]

hrmmm i can sujest a friend of mine his web site is www.websitedoctor.net and he is very good.
but you might want ot seek out others as well and do some shoping around to be fair about this sence im now alowed to plug other people to much here:)

good luck with your search.
james

[RRolfe]

Hey, I know of a guy who does flash, html, and imaging.. His designs are good and he seems to be pretty reliable.

check him out at http://www.tannercreative.com

[JeremyV]

Thanks, some pretty good stuff. I'll keep them bookmarked.

Anyone know of any more designer specific forums? I know of sitepoint.. but any other good ones?

[Rewdog]

Originally posted by JeremyV:

Thanks, some pretty good stuff. I'll keep them bookmarked.

Anyone know of any more designer specific forums? I know of sitepoint.. but any other good ones?
http://yaxay.com
http://tutorialforums.com
http://deviantart.com (go to the forum section)

[MMiz]

http://yaxay.com is the way to go. The problem I find with the web hosting forums is that 99% of the designers design WebHosting only designs, or lack the imagination to do "Outside the box" designs.

[interactive]

I used to be on Deviant art a bunch, I would just be careful, not that I have anything against minors (as I'm one myself) but about 85% of the people on there are minors. Yaxay is a good forum though. Or go talk to PixelBrick if your clients have loads of money?

[JeremyV]

Well one of my clients I'm working with does have loads of money. He showed me his existing site that he paid 3000 dollars for, and it consists of 5 pages, looks like a front page basic template. And a few of the images were not optimized and over 300KB in size :o

But most designs are going to be small scale and local businesses just getting an online presence, probably not looking to spend more than a few hundred dollars. So I guess I'm looking at mid-range designs. Not super basic templates, but not terribly elegant sites with a ton of flash and music.

And yeah, I didn't want to imply anything against minors, but like you mentioned, most of the sites are full of minors just hanging out and making some extra cash. I just want to to make sure things are done right, for tax purposes and such, sending out 1099-MISC forms, and what have you.

:)

[interactive]

I totally agree. Most of my employeers, just pay in cash and send out a 1099 to me.

[TheGAME1264]

JeremyV, you may have better luck by looking not for places where designers post their portfolios, but where designers post questions/comments/discussions with other designers. I've found that there are a lot of talented designers who post to these boards, and they are easily determined by the comments other designers make about them.

For example, I'm a board moderator at Web Design Forums (http://www.webdesignforums.net). There is a user there named transio who, even though he has only been around a few weeks, has done a terrific job of helping out others (including me) with code snippets and graphic advice. In doing so, he has gained a great deal of respect from others.

His site, by the way, is here (http://www.transio.com) and his name is Steven Moseley.

[Operator]

I find go designers through recommendations. My recommendation is:
http://www.ravio.com

[Jag]

I love the work Andrei has done for us. might want to check him out http://www.subtilize.com/

[xaviahost]

www.vivestudios.com

You can contact him on AIM @ style fitch

[JeremyV]

Thanks for all of the great links and refrences. I'm sure I will be able to find someone out of these to work with :)