Top 20 Websites to Find Work as a Freelance Designer

by Matt on March 1, 2009 · 47 comments

in Featured,Freelance,Resources

You have the skill. You have the time. You are ready to work, but there’s one problem. You have no clients. The biggest struggle freelancers face is finding work. There are a number of services and websites that bring the jobs right to you. Here are the best places to find design work, including job boards for full time and freelance projects, blogs to write for, and a few more websites.

Job Boards

If you are looking for an easy way to get a job, and you have a strong resume, job boards are the way to go.

oDesk

oDesk provides a huge selection of jobs in almost every field of design and development. The board has many convenient features, such as a detailed search that allows you to find exactly what you are looking for. Out of all of the job boards, I think this may be the one with the most selection.

odesk

Elance

Elance is a huge job board, containing around 20,000 jobs at a time. So far they have helped creatives to earn a total of almost $150,000,000. Elance is an awesome site with large selection.

elance

Krop

Krop is the largest job board, and is often regarded as the best place for designers and developers to find a well-paying job. This job board is always filled with hundreds of jobs in numerous different positions. Krop should certainly be on your list.

krop1

Behance Job Board

The Behance Network is a huge part of the creative community, and they also have a great job board. The selection isn’t as wide as some of the others, but it is certainly a quality selection. You are also very likely to get a job if you get you have a strong Behance portfolio, because clients see your Behance portfolio too.

behancejobs1

Smashing Jobs

Smashing Magazine, one of the design communities best blogs, also runs a job board with a large number of high paying jobs. Smashing’s job board also contains a large selection of full time jobs from all around the world.

smashingjobs1

FreelanceSwitch Job Board

FreelanceSwitch is the resource for all freelancers. You can find freelance design and writing opportunities on their job board, and it is certainly one to check out. FreelanceSwitch generally has a nice selection of around 100 jobs available.

freelanceswitchjobs1

Coroflot

Coroflot’s extensive job board features many different creative fields. The job board contains only full time jobs, but there are jobs of high quality located all around the US.

coroflotjobs1

design:related jobs

Design:related offers some awesome services to creatives, and they host a job board with a long list of worthwhile jobs.

designrelated

Jobs on the Wall

Jobs on the Wall is a job board created by Web Designer Wall, a very popular blog. This is a rather new job board, so it doesn’t have a huge amount of jobs, but it generally has a fair amount. Not to mention the beautiful interface!

jobsonthewall

Authentic Jobs

Another very popular board, Authentic Jobs provides a thorough selection of jobs from top companies and agencies. Although this doesn’t have a huge selection like some of the others, it has an excellent client base.

authenticjobs

Fresh Web Jobs

Fresh Web Jobs has a nice list of web design and development jobs. They have many full time jobs, and a good list of part time jobs also. If you are looking for web design and development work specifically, then look into Fresh Web Jovs.

freshwebjobs

Guru

Guru is another popular freelance jobs website. They have many jobs in the web and graphic design areas, but also have other occupations too.

guru

No Agencies Please

No Agencies Please has a long list of full time jobs in Europe, and also has freelance jobs.

noagencies

Writing

If you have the skills to do client work, then you certainly have the skills to spread your knowledge on blogs. Writing for blogs is an excellent source of extra income, and can also be an easy way to promote your personal brand. Here are a few blogs that you should look at writing for.

Smashing Magazine

Smashing Magazine is a very popular blog that is based entirely on freelance writers. If you are looking to earn good money writing for a blog, Smashing Magazine is certainly something you should look into.

smashing

Tutorial9

Tutorial9 offers from $150 up to $300 for Photoshop, Photography, Web/Blogging tutorials, or resources.

t9

The Envato Network

The Envato Network is another well-paying option for writing. On their tutorial sites, they will generally pay about $150 per article.

psdtuts

Webdesigner Depot

Webdesigner Depot is pays very well for articles, again $150. Again, another great website to write for.

webdesignerdepot

Six Revisions

Six Revisions pays about $50 – $100, and is another great option when looking for extra cash.

sixrevisions

You the Designer

You the Designer also pays $150 for tutorials.

ytd

Twitter

Yes, I did say Twitter. Twitter is becoming more than just a social networking platform. It has now turned into one of the best marketing sites, and is certainly the place for designers. But find work, on Twitter?! Yes, and I have done it myself. I have been hired a few times from interactions on Twitter.

How do you find jobs on Twitter? There are three ways, first of all, you can look out for tweets from people looking to hire. I have found one job that way, simply by responding to a Tweet I saw. Second, if you have a fair amount of followers, you can tweet every so often asking if anybody needs work done. Finally, Twitter is a great way to connect with others. I have received numerous jobs from connecting and interacting with others on Twitter.

Crowdsourcing

There are a number of popular crowd sourcing websites, such as Get a Coder and CrowdSpring. It is another option to find work, but is not the best idea. Many say doing work through a crowdsourcing based website can waste your time, and I recomend avoiding it as well. If your submission is not excepted, then you have wasted your time, and your time is certainly worth more than that.

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{ 45 comments… read them below or add one }

Tylor March 1, 2009 at 10:38 pm

Hey, I wanted to know how to make money on twitter. Did I miss something or did it just end mid-sentence?…

Matt March 1, 2009 at 10:51 pm

@Tylor

My bad, that’s what happens when you write a lot :) It’s fixed!

Tracey Grady March 1, 2009 at 11:41 pm

Excellent piece. I will be expanding my work as a design contractor very soon so it’s very useful to get your perspective on these sites. I’d also heard similar advice re twitter very recently, and I’m glad to hear it’s worked for you.

Matt March 1, 2009 at 11:48 pm

@Tracey Grady

Twitter is certainly a very useful site. I have heard many other stories of people getting work on Twitter, and I myself have been lucky enough to have benefit from Twitter also!

David Leggett March 2, 2009 at 12:34 am

Hey, thanks for mentioning Tutorial9 :)

We actually pay up to $300, but we only offer this exclusive price to our top contributors. I know it’s confusing since we don’t mention it anywhere on the site – it’s usually something we mention to authors after they’ve sent us a preview for what they want to create.

Would love it if you could mention we pay $150-300 for resources and tutorials :) Thanks again!

Pariah Burke March 2, 2009 at 12:51 am

Excellent list! Don’t forget the giant list of graphic design job openings at http://workflowfreelance.com.

web design March 2, 2009 at 7:10 am

thanks for sharing.

Jeremy Byrnes March 2, 2009 at 10:29 am

Hi,

This is a nice post. I’ve been a follower of your blog.

Pls also visit http://www.thecontentannex.com.

Sincerely,
Jeremy Byrnes

Multidesign March 2, 2009 at 10:48 am

will design for food :)

Mark March 2, 2009 at 10:52 am

Another one which I have found some work on is http://www.integritylance.com

TheFreelanceNation March 2, 2009 at 11:46 am

Excellent. A few new sites that I hadn’t heard of before. Always good to know of potential collaborators. While our site (TheFreelanceNation.com) does have jobs, we specialize in promoting freelancers through SEO’d profiles – so that work can find them, too.

Good work. Keep up the deep research and educational posts!

J. A. Lohmann
––––––––––––––
Co-Founder / Partner
http://www.AdvertisingAndDesign.net
Dallas / Colorado Springs
––––––––––––––
LinkedIn.com/in/JayLohmann
+5100
––––––––––––––
Twitter.com/FreelanceNation
@FreelanceNation

audrey March 4, 2009 at 11:19 am

This is a nice page. Useful for people doing freelance work.

Peter J Cooper March 9, 2009 at 1:18 am

Hi, you may like to include http://www.designbay.com on your next one, they provide work to hundreds of designers around the world. It is not too bad. Cheers, Peter.

Daniel March 19, 2009 at 5:57 am

You should list also Jobforweb!

http://www.jobforweb.com/

it’s a new job board for everything related to Web jobs

and cool layout too! :)

Liora March 23, 2009 at 3:25 am

Excellent and quality resources. Thanks, there were a few that are new to me. Are there any sites for graphic designers that specialize in PRINT?

Travis May 14, 2009 at 11:42 am

You guys forgot about Werkadoo! We’re brand new, but jumping in the game :)

Richard Taimalie December 4, 2009 at 2:09 am

Thank you for the excellent resouces.
These will be very useful.

Amber wright July 25, 2010 at 1:08 am

Of all of the websites listed, I would say I enjoy using Elance the most. One you don’t have here, but I like to use as well is Betacoder.

web design manchester February 1, 2011 at 8:34 am

I keep checking the website for new tuts but this one has been very interesting and knowledge full .

Tobijah March 4, 2011 at 6:15 pm

I love all these places! There is also a new one similar to Authentic Jobs. It is called Loyal Jobs. You can check them out at http://www.loyaljobs.com

Tobijah March 4, 2011 at 6:16 pm

I love all of these! Also check out this new one called Loyal Jobs. http://www.loyaljobs.com

Donovan Crow April 21, 2011 at 4:04 am

Just a quick word to say thanks and this post was very helpful for me.

jason April 26, 2011 at 2:46 pm

really appreciate post likes these… thanks! i can also suggest http://www.push1.com/freelance/ similar to no agencies please

Share English May 21, 2011 at 11:53 pm

Hello, as for as ı can see you are good post.
thanks

Swift Creations June 16, 2011 at 3:02 am

Thanks for sharing this post guys.

Jessica July 13, 2011 at 1:06 am

This a great list, Matt!
I totally agree with Twitter. Not only is it a good marketing tool, but it’s also one way of posting your services.

sezer August 18, 2011 at 8:29 am

hello !

ankara hosting September 1, 2011 at 1:22 pm

Well, I am so excited that I have located your post because I have been searching for some information on this for almost three hours! You’ve helped me a lot indeed and by scaning this post I have found many new and useful info about this subject!

Alex November 15, 2011 at 3:08 pm

Great list, another useful place is HTML Jobs Finder

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Rie Avis May 18, 2012 at 3:13 am

Have you checked out http://www.staff.com? Here’s another great alternative site for freelancers.

Chris Evans December 17, 2012 at 6:59 am

You’ve got great resources here; with these sites freelancers has better chances of getting a client. When you are planning to work online you must possess the skills and expertise because the competition on each task is very high and the chance of getting hired is low. Compared to the person that has no skills and expertise, it is way too hard for you to get a job. However, there are also some freelance tasks that don’t need skills and expertise just like data entry. All you need is a good typing speed and time management in order to be successful with this business. In additional to the list is https://www.99hours.com/ where you can look for freelancers for full time work

working from home online jobs February 1, 2013 at 11:42 am

Write more, thats all I have to say. Literally, it seems as though you relied on the video to make your
point. You clearly know what youre talking about, why throw away your intelligence on
just posting videos to your weblog when you could be giving us something
enlightening to read?

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Charleen Smiths May 27, 2013 at 5:27 am

Nice list of freelancing platforms, really good overview. Unfortunately freelancermap.com is missing. I really would recommend this platform. It’s an international IT-project board where freelancers and outsourcing providers can register for free and apply without limitation.
Maybe this post would help other freelancers to find a great job!

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