Where to get Affordable Quality Design Work

I was talking with an old friend of mine yesterday who was talking about how expensive it was to start his new business. While start-up costs can cause a great deal of stress, what surprised me most was how much he paid for design work. He told me all together, it cost him almost $300 for a simple logo and two banners. While I know quality design is well worth the money; when a budget is tight there is no need to go to a costly professional design studio to get quality work completed.

Over the past five years I have been using independent freelance designers to design dozens of logos and none of them cost me over $15 (some as little as $5). They key to finding these designers is knowing where they spend their time, designer and webmaster forums. Over the years I have experimented with many designers on many online forums but have found the two best places to find quality affordable designers online are Digital Point and Namepros.

Digital Point features a design section where hundreds of designers are offering their services, with prices ranging from $5-$50+. However, the vast majority of designers offer high quality professional designs for $15 or less. If you go with a designer on Digital Point, make sure to ask for their design portfolio and look at their iTrader rating to see what previous clients say about their work.

Namepros takes a different approach allowing you to create a design contest, listing your requirements and setting a price for the winner. Designers can look at your requirements and submit their entries and you choose the winner. The obvious advantage to this is that you can evaluate work from multiple designers and only pay for the logo you choose. However, tread carefully because if you do create a contest on Namepros you must choose a winner from the entrants. I have found that $10-$20 is usually enough to attract a few quality entrants.