Which job boards are worth my job-posting dollar?

January 31, 2013 5:12 PM

I need to find a Web designer -- but one that can design for a Django environment. MeFi Jobs hasn't turned up anything, and free sites just get me spam from India. What pay-to-play posting sites are worth paying for?

Over the past two years, a Django programmer and I have built a pretty great Web site that I think has a lot of potential. Unfortunately, neither of us have design skills to speak of.

The programmer has pulled back from the project due to health issues, and I'm left with a great idea, a butt-ugly site, and neither the skill to design a better version, or to implement that design in a Django environment. So I'm looking for 80% designer, 20% Django-savvy person.

I've got a great handle on what's needed, and a very detailed set of needs and parameters. Clarity won't be an issue. But there are a *lot* of sites out there that charge money to post a job, and while I've got a (modest) budget to pay a designer, I don't have hundreds and hundreds of dollars to spread the word. Which site will best meet my kinda unusual needs?

Here's the list I've assembled, organized into boards more oriented towards design, ones oriented more towards programming, and some that seem to scratch both itches.

I'm in the awkward position of knowing a bit, but not a lot, about both things, but not enough to be able to gauge somebody's competence at the drop of a hat. I'm also looking into the freelancer sites like Elance, but they feel a bit more risky than a dedicated job board.

Advice, MeFites?

Design-driven:
Smashing Magazine: $75
Authentic Jobs: $99
Krop: $199
Coroflot: $265
The FWA: (Euros)100
Design Related: Invitation only
Aiga Design Jobs: $95
Behance: $199

Django-driven:
StackOverflow: $350
Django Gigs: $45
Dice: $495
CrunchBoard: $200
Ars Technica (via Monster?): $300 (on "sale")

Both, or both-ish:
Boxes and Arrows: $250
37 Signals: $400

All-purpose:
LinkedIn: $300
Elance (free)
Project4Hire (free)

posted by Shepherd to work & money (16 answers total)

How about Dribbble?
posted by backwards guitar at 5:22 PM on January 31

Look around for a local Linux users group or Linux jobs mailing list. It'll be free and perfectly targeted.
posted by COD at 5:24 PM on January 31

You're looking for a designer, not a programmer, so I'm not sure how the technology your using really matters. Unless you want him to implement the design himself?

If you're really after a pure designer, Krop and Coroflot are the ones I've heard good things about.
posted by drjimmy11 at 5:54 PM on January 31

Oh sorry I missed this:

80% designer, 20% Django-savvy person.

Honestly I think you're looking for two people then. I have rarely ever seen a quality designer with anything more than rudimentary html skills. I say this as a programmer who can do some design. I know what a good font is, I can match colors. But I didn't go to art school and I'm not a graphic artist. You don't want someone like me designing your site.
posted by drjimmy11 at 5:57 PM on January 31 [1 favorite]

Put another way, asking for "Django-savvy" excludes literally 99%+ of the good designers in the world.
posted by drjimmy11 at 5:57 PM on January 31 [7 favorites]

ODesk seems to be popular, and you can have people bid by the hour or by the job.
posted by zug at 6:26 PM on January 31

What drjimmy11 said. Django = Python programmer with specialization in a particular web publishing framework/library. Designer = designer. Overlap of those competent in both: about ten people on Earth.

It's hard enough finding good designers who also know Javascript, never mind Django.
posted by zippy at 6:31 PM on January 31 [2 favorites]

Journalism job boards? Since Django has a big presence among news people.
posted by steinsaltz at 6:56 PM on January 31

I agree with folks above. Not strictly because great designers aren't good at coding, though — there are lots of good->great designers out there with experience making Wordpress templates. Django is niche enough, though, that the specific confluence of skills you're looking for is going to be rare indeed.

I perused the Django template docs and it doesn't seem that much more complex than Wordpress. If you phrase the posting well you may luck out and find an enterprising designer who's interested in tackling the job. You will be doing a fair amount of hand-holding, though.

Alternately: if you were given a design built in HTML could you code up the necessary Django?
posted by wemayfreeze at 7:38 PM on January 31

drjimmy11: "Honestly I think you're looking for two people then. I have rarely ever seen a quality designer with anything more than rudimentary html skills"

I'm training one up as a student employee, but you can't have him!
posted by pwnguin at 7:44 PM on January 31

I tend to agree on the people saying two people might be needed--I'm part of a two person team that does contract jobs like that. She does the graphic design, I do the programming.

What she does is the design and making the images; I then take the graphics she gives me (cut up into implementable pieces) and implement the front and the back ends.

I'm doing a contract job with a design friend she recommended me to and he *does* do a little Django programming and frontend implementation, but very rudimentary on the Django part, and he was more than happy for me to do all of it in our teamwork.
posted by foxfirefey at 8:50 PM on January 31

What does "design for a Django environment" actually mean? Every web designer I've worked with provided a PSD file that was development environment neutral. Designers are designers and developers are developers. Most developers are not good designers, and most good designers are not developers. If you look at the lists of developers on DjangoGigs, pick any country and search for (i.e.,, "find") the word "designer" on the list of developers in that country. You'll see most of the ones who provide design services either do it as a company with multiple people or do it in partnership with someone else. You might find some who do both in some countries.
posted by Dansaman at 11:19 PM on January 31

Thanks for the thoughts so far. I'm obviously barking up the wrong tree trying to find somebody that can do both.

But here's why I've been trying to do that, which might be helpful:

I know enough CSS/HTML to set up a basic home page.
I know enough Python/Django to get to the third page of the Django tutorial.

But when it comes to implementing somebody else's design on the site, I frankly feel like I would cock it the hell up. Having a great design sitting as a bunch of PSD files on an FTP server falls short, by one step, of what I need to happen -- the design to be done, but also to be implemented.

So is it (a) find designer and (b) find Django programmer to implement? Is that the best way forward?
posted by Shepherd at 8:25 AM on February 1

And also (sorry): if I were looking for a pure designer, which of the initially listed sites will get me the best results?
posted by Shepherd at 8:26 AM on February 1

Not Boxes and Arrows. That's a publication for information architects. (I am one.) Few if any people who identify enough as an IA to be reading the B&A job board are going to be very skilled in design.
posted by ImproviseOrDie at 1:37 PM on February 1

This is one of those instances where AskMe told me what I needed to know, instead of what I wanted to know. I'm going to mark this resolved and follow up in some of the recommended directions above.
posted by Shepherd at 12:24 PM on February 7 [1 favorite]