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Being a freelance web designer is a competitive field, everyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of how to open Dreamweaver, or use Photoshop’s motion blur tool think they can hack it as a web designer. Not to mention a number of third-world countries’ easy ability to underbid you by a fraction of what you charge hourly.
All kidding aside, it is difficult to find decent work on job bidding sites due to the sheer amount of people bidding and the overwhelming amount of people looking for the lowest price and expecting the highest quality. This listing of freelance job boards is just that, a listing of just freelance job boards (that don’t suck) where you are hired (mostly) based on your talent rather than how low you can bid.
I use a number of these job boards and look for opportunities that fit my skill set as well as my rates, so finding work on them can sometimes be difficult. Especially if you make a list of them and share it with a few thousand people.
The list of freelance web design job boards
FreelanceSwitch – http://jobs.freelanceswitch.com/
This job board maintained by FreelanceSwitch probably has the most amount of jobs posted regularly, and they are typically pretty good quality. Designers do have to pay for their membership at $7/month and from talking with people I’ve won contracts with through it they literally get hundreds of responses, so there is a lot of competition when you apply for a project which makes it important to stand out from the other freelance web designers applying. You can also create a profile of your freelance web design skills.
AuthenticJobs – http://www.authenticjobs.com/
This job board has a mix of full time positions and freelance positions. Typically the freelance position I see on here are of pretty high quality and the companies aren’t looking for cheap labor but talented web designers and user interface designers.
Krop – http://www.krop.com/
This is very similar to AuthenticJobs as far as talent goes, a very high demand for creatives. I don’t see quite as many freelance positions on this site but for the work I do see it is worth my time to check it.
Smashing Jobs – http://jobs.smashingmagazine.com/
Smashing Jobs has a ton of work and it is pretty regularly updated, there are quite a few full time positions that out weight the amount of freelance work available but it definitely has some great opportunities on there, even if there is a lot of competition.
Designm.ag Job board – http://designm.ag/jobs/
Another great job board with a ton of freelance work available. There are quite a few good jobs to be found through it.
Design jobs on the wall – http://jobs.webdesignerwall.com/
Not nearly as many freelance jobs available as some of the others but the few that are found are usually high quality and worth the effort to send over your information.
Sitepoint’s Looking to Hire – http://marketplace.sitepoint.com/categories/looking-to-hire
Quite nearly the craigslist of this list, there are a few good freelance design opportunities to be found through this forum occasionally but a lot of it is pure junk, worth a quick skimming though.
Craigslist aggregator – http://jaysonng.com/jobs/aggregator
Although craigslist rarely has good freelance web design opportunities (depending on your location) this aggregator actually checks all (i think?) of the web info / design categories across the various locations for easy skimming.
Freelance web design job board advice
Some of the job boards don’t have a ton of freelance work available but going through each one of these sites at least once a day is the best way to find new work.
What job boards (or methods) have you found work well for you?
Topics: Design, Dreamweaver, Freelancing, Open Source, Photoshop
