If you’re looking to hire the best freelance graphic designers, it helps to know where to look.

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While you always have the option of posting a gig on a job board, it’s often much easier to find freelancers through websites. Freelance graphic design websites help you sort through top talent, set up contracts, and make payments with minimal effort.

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With a robust employee performance tracking system like Insightful, you can hire without fear of not getting the results you’re looking for.

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There are dozens of platforms for finding freelancers with various levels of skill and experience. In this guide, we’ll walk you through some of the best websites in 2022.

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Best for Large Businesses: Behance

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Behance is an excellent option for large businesses that have the budget to sign up for a monthly subscription to the platform.

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It’s one of the most well-known websites for finding freelance graphic designers, and it’s an excellent place to browse the portfolios of more than 15 million creatives. Trusted by brands such as Nike and Google, Behance has a strong reputation for matching brands with creative talent.

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One of the easiest ways to identify the right person for the job with graphic design is to see their previous work and see if that matches up with what you’re looking for. The moment you load the Behance homepage, you’re met with a grid showing a range of freelance designers along with snapshots of their best work.

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Furthermore, you can filter your search according to the type of work you need done or the software you prefer the freelancer to use. Here are some categories you’ll find on the website:

•  Illustrator
•  Lightroom
•  InDesign
•  3D Art 
•  Motion 
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The Hiring Process

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To hire on Behance, you’ll need to first select a premium subscription option:

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Adobe Talent - $399/month (One job post per month)

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Adobe Talent Unlimited - $1499/month (Unlimited job posts)

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When you set up a job post on the website, you can either look through freelancer portfolios yourself or let Behance do the heavy lifting and provide custom recommendations based on what you need.

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You can keep track of promising freelancers by saving their profiles;  you can also share job posts with recruiters, managers, or anyone else involved in your hiring process.

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Top Features

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Freelancer Portfolios - Track down the perfect graphic designer by browsing their best work.

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Large Talent Pool - With more than 15 million creatives on the site, there’s a good chance you’ll find someone with the right skill set for the job.

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Best for Website Design: 99designs

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99designs offers both individual freelancers with experience in graphic design and full-service brand identity packages. As such, you can choose whether you want an off-the-shelf experience or a graphic designer to collaborate with. 

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While 99designs has designers specializing in many areas, there’s a particular emphasis on the following:

• Logo designs
• Web page design
• Product packaging

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The Hiring Process

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1.  Create a brief for the graphic designer and submit it to the platform.
2.  Choose a designer that’s presented to you or set up a design contest.
3.  Use the website’s secure payment system to pay the designer upon completion of the project.

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Top Features

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Service Packages - Choose a full-service brand identity package to sidestep the hiring process.

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Design Contest Packages - Choose a Bronze, Silver, Gold, or Platinum design contest, each with its own pricing and benefits such as money-back guarantees and the involvement of dedicated managers.

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Best for Vetted Talent: TopTal

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If you’re looking for the best of the best, TopTal (short for Top Talent) offers up an excellent talent pool to tap into. Hiring only the top 3% of freelancers that apply to join the website, TopTal’s vetting process ensures clients are paired with highly-skilled candidates.

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You can use the website to hire graphic designers on a part-time or full-time basis or simply on an hourly contract.

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As a result of the rigorous freelancer hiring criteria, TopTal has a 98% trial-to-hire success rate which should all but guarantee you find the perfect graphic designer.

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The Hiring Process

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1.  Submit a detailed job description including how many freelancers you need.
2.  TopTal’s internal team of experts will review the submission and source the best available talent.
3.  TopTal will present you with several candidates for the position, and once you sign off on one or more, the work can start.
   
   

Top Features

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No-risk Trial - If you’re not satisfied with the freelancer you chose, you don’t have to pay and TopTal will find you a suitable alternative. 

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Pre-Vetted Freelancers - TopTal vets every freelancer that joins the platform, so you’re more likely to find highly-skilled graphic designers when you use the website.

Best for Design Contests: Designhill

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Sometimes seeing a portfolio of past work isn’t enough to go on. That’s where design contests can be a useful way of finding the perfect graphic designer for the job. A great fit on paper doesn’t always make for the best hire, after all.

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Designhill provides just that - a way of putting on design contests and letting freelancers compete for the job with their best work.

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Here’s how the website’s design contests work:

1. Complete the questionnaire and establish pricing.
2. Review dozens of submissions from freelancers.
3. Select a winner and receive the source files and ownership of the design.
   
   

The Hiring Process

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As highlighted above, design contests are one of the most popular ways to find the right talent on Designhill. However, you can also hire in the following ways:

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• Use the Graphic Design Services option to get a custom package from the platform’s designers.
• Reach out to a freelancer directly and enquire about their availability for a project.
  
  

Top Features

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Custom Packages - Have the platform’s designers rustle a custom design up for you with the Graphic Design Services option.

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Graphic & Logo Design Contests - Fill out a design brief, let freelancers compete to win the contest, then pick the winner.

Best for Small Gigs: Fiverr

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Fiverr is synonymous with the gig economy in some respects, and as such it’s ideal for rapid turnarounds and hiring for small gigs.

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A big differentiator with Fiverr, as a more well-rounded freelance platform, is that there’s a premium tier of freelancers that operate under the title ‘Fiverr Pro’. Fiverr Pro freelancers are hand-vetted and can be your best bet for sourcing top talent for high-quality graphic design work.

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The Hiring Process

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Unlike other platforms that let you post a job and either curate freelancers or have freelancers apply for the job, Fiverr feels more like a shopping experience. Each freelancer has their own shop window of sorts where they can display the gigs they offer.

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For example, you might find a graphic designer that will design a logo at three separate price points, depending on what exactly you need.

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That makes the hiring process straightforward since you can search for the perfect gig, and pay according to how many revisions you need or other factors.

Top Features

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Fiverr Pro - Select from a pool of hand-vetted graphic designers.

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Freelancer Gigs - Browse pre-made gigs to simplify the hiring process.

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Best for Long-Term Collaboration: Upwork

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If you’re looking to establish long-term working relationships with one or more freelancers, Upwork is an excellent choice.

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Why?

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Because it offers more than just a method of hiring graphic designers.

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Here are some of the features that can help you collaborate with graphic designers on a long-term basis:

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•  Easy, secure payment using an escrow system
•  Contracts with milestones 
•  Time tracking for hourly jobs
•  Built-in video calls and Loom recording
•  Meeting scheduling
•  Search feature for finding links or messages

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The newly-introduced Project Catalog feature allows you to browse prepackaged projects with set prices if you need something specific from a graphic designer.

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The Hiring Process

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1.  Create a job description and set a budget for the project.
2.  Include questions to get relevant information from applicants.
3.  Assess applications and create a shortlist.
4.  Hire the freelancer and start a contract.
   
   

Top Features

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Robust Long-Term Collaboration - Hire a freelancer and maintain an ongoing working relationship with features such as milestone-based contracts, time tracking, and video calls.

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Proposals - With proposals, you’ll be able to sift through a variety of applications to find the right candidate based on various criteria.

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Hire Confidently with Insightful

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For many companies, hiring freelancers can be intimidating as it means looking outside of your company to bolster the workforce. Without activity tracker software, you might worry that you’re not getting great value for your money.

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That’s why if you’re looking to hire from the freelance talent pool it can help to implement remote working software beforehand. 

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Insightful's employee monitoring software will show you how to analyze employee performance through a suite of features aimed at driving productivity in your workforce. Time tracking, shift scheduling, and screenshot monitoring can bolster your productivity measuring efforts so you can hire with confidence.

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