A small tip on hiring designers off Dribble et al.:
Be careful of designers that put out a lot of pretty-looking designs of non-existent apps. These are not "real" projects. They don't face the same constraints an actual project does. They're only optimized for good looks. They are fantasies.<p>So when judging someone's work remember to factor in whether or not it was an actual project meant to go live.
The best designers either already have a job, or are doing the freelance thing. So I suggest that you start with identifying companies that you think have good design and start looking through linkedin for the designers that work there. Next, reach out for a coffee/drink and see how amenable they are to talking about design at your company. If it's the right fit, the designer will be excited and you can move on to a more formal interview process. If the designer is happy where they are, ask if they know anyone who might be interested.<p>My funnel looks like this:
-reach out to about 50 designers
-15 of them are open to coffee
-1 of those 15 are open to an interview<p>Note about freelancers: they tend to like the lifestyle that freelance provides. I've had luck with hiring on freelancers as part time contractors that actually show up on site, then gradually convincing them to join up full time.
Dont forget to:
1. think about the goal you want to reach with the help of the designer. Think visual UI, UX flow, conversion, app, web, etc<p>2. Become clear if you want somebody remote or on site, freelance or fulltime.<p>3. Start looking for your ideal candidate trough
- your social reach (people who like what you are doing already)
- your network (2nd and 3rd level connections on linked in)
- go profile hunting on designer pages like Dribble, behance 99Designs, etc. to find a style "you like" if it is about visual design
- approach them, duh ;-)<p>Hope that helps?!<p>PS: I am currently writing a how to guide to find and hire UX Designers [1]. If you want to see the draft and give feedback just send me an email (see profile)<p>[1] <a href="http://uxstepbystep.com/guide/how-to-hire-ux-designers/" rel="nofollow">http://uxstepbystep.com/guide/how-to-hire-ux-designers/</a>
This is a tough question. I'd say it depends on what kind of designer you need!<p>I'm a product designer in SF, and I work with many amazing designers. I can say that the vast majority of us are not publishing on Dribbble, Behance, etc.<p>I would recommend posting jobs on Dribbble, however. That's probably the first place I would go if I were looking for a new gig.<p>Designer News and Angel List are popular. Also Stack Overflow and GitHub for the more technically-oriented designers.<p>Lastly, I'd recommend word-of-mouth on Twitter. The design community there is pretty robust.
I found one via an open source project.<p>The other I found by just being friendly at a coffee shop. He was working there at the time. I have collaborated on a number of projects with him since we first met in 2012.
I've used Behance and Dribbble with some success. I took the approach of hiring several designers for the same small project. It isn't the cheapest approach, as I paid market rates, but it gave a baseline for comparison, was totally fair, and it resulted in an amazing hire that changed my business dramatically. She also referred another designer to the team from her network that has been fab too.
It depends what you want to do, if it's just for a logo or a one-off small task I reckon 99 designs might be the right fit. If you need something more involved then I agree with the others that Dribbble/behance is a good choice.