You are a marketing director or manager. It’s Friday afternoon. You are preparing for the weekend. Suddenly, your boss appears at your office door. He announces that the company will be attending a trade show in a couple of weeks, and you need to create new brochures for the event. However, most of your marketing team members are on vacation, ill, or busy with other projects.

What do you do?

If you are like most marketing managers or directors, you hire a freelance graphic designer to complete your project. But where do you go for help?

When hiring a graphic designer, there are several things you must consider, including does that person understand what you want, can your project be done under deadline and budget, is that person accessible if you have any questions or comments, and will that person be around long enough to actually complete your project.

While freelancers aren’t free…they are free to move around. Just make sure they don’t move around until they completed your project.

One word of advice – if you find a really good graphic designer who understands you and “gets what you want,” hang on to that person for dear life. There are tons of artists out there, but only a few who you can establish a creative bond with.

Below are 5 companies to consider –

1). Illustria Designs

2)Freelancer

3).DesignCrowd

4).oDesk

5).Fivver

I will go into more detail about each company below –

Illustria Designs –

A two-year-old startup, Illustria offers a Netflix style subscription service that you can cancel anytime. With 5 subscription packages ranging from $49.00 to $6,999 a month, the company offers different levels of service. Using the program, you select the membership tier that best meets your needs and budget, discusses your project with a creative director, submits your request, has a designer work on your project, and receives real-time updates to track progress so you save time and ensure that your work meets your criteria. All designers work on-site. You have the option to select a specific designer. (Full Disclosure – I know both of the owners/founders of this company)

Below is a YouTube video of Katherine Long, co-founder, giving a presentation about Illustria at the Bay Area Marketers a couple of years ago  –

Freelancer –

Boasts more than 15 million users. You simply post your project on its website and receive bids from freelance graphic designers worldwide. You compare the proposals and prices and select the ones that best meet your needs.

You can engage in real-time chat, collaborate and track tasks. All payments are made through the Freelancer.

Pawan Kumar presents a great tutorial on how to use Freelancer –

DesignCrowd –

The site claims nearly 450,000 graphic designers. You post a description of your work, get a 100 plus designers sending your designs to your inbox, review and compare the work, and then choose the best design based on your standards. The site offers a 100% money-back guarantee.

You can also find graphic designers under different categories, including the type of design, country, positive feedback rating, projects won, and much more.

Below is a video from YouTube explaining how DesignCrowd works in more detail –

oDesk –

By entering “graphic designer” under search, you can see a list of designers, descriptions of their specialties, country, hourly rates, ratings, hours they worked for oDesk customers, and more.

You post your job description and receive applications from candidates, review their work and background, set up a virtual interview to select the best candidate, and you can track their progress. oDesk handles all financial transactions for you.

Evan Carmichael presents an excellent video below from YouTube on how to find good people on oDesk –

Fiveer –

There is no bidding or negotiations. Services start a $5.00. With Fiveer, you browse through what is available, order what you need on a secure platform. You also have a chance to review seller levels, reviews, and ratings. You can select by delivery time, illustration type, style, file format, and much more.

Tim Levy offers a 16 minute tutorial from YouTube on how to use Fiveer –