One of the biggest tricks in being a freelance designer is promoting yourself. There are many ways to promote yourself, some obvious, and others not. Here are some websites for promoting yourself as a freelance designer. (In some order)
1. Behance Network
Behance is a large network of the best creatives. You can make a profile, post your work, and interact with other designers. With a strong portfolio, good work, and a little effort, you gain a lot of publicity through Behance.
2. Coroflot
Coroflot is another good site for sharing your online portfolio. It is a great tool to expose your work.
3. design:related
Like Behance, design:related is a popular site for publishing and promoting work while collaborating with other designers.
4. Design You Trust
Design You Trust is a design blog and community for inspiration where you can post work. It is a great place to post your best pieces. DYT is very popular, so posting good collections will help boost your popularity.
5. Carbonmade
Carbonmade is another cool site for publishing your online portfolio.
6. flickr
flickr is actually a good way to share and display your work. By joining groups, you can share your work with other designers, quite like one of the portfolio sites.
7. LinkedIn
Social networking is also useful for spreading your name. LinkedIn is the largest social networking site for professionals. It is another good way to connect with other creatives.
8. RedBubble
RedBubble is a place for designers and artists to share and sell their work.
9. LogoPond
LogoPond is a place for logo designers to set up a profile and publish their logo designs.
10. illyPads
illyPads is the same as LogoPond, but for illustration.
11. Elance
Elance is a site that a lot of businesses use for finding freelance designers. You can set up a profile and start getting your name out to businesses.
12. deviantART
deviantART is one of the best design communities. It is another great place to get your work seen by others.
13. Twitter
Although you can’t post any work on Twitter, you can link back to your portfolios.
14. MySpace
I think Myspace is pretty self-explanatory.
15. Facebook
Again, self-explanatory.
What do you use?
Share your preferences, or tell me if I should add any.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for the list. It’s a never-ending slog, isn’t it?
Hi. Useful list as there are a couple on here that I really didn’t know about, Design You Trust and Lillypads.
funny how sometimes the most obvious sites can elude you, will check ‘em out later.
Thanks
Graham
Very helpful! Thanks!
You are forgetting some of the most important ones — CSS/Design galleries. If your site is good enough, and you get in at the right time, they can generate over 7000 unique hits in a couple weeks.
I agree with Ryan Scherf CSS galleries are a powerful tool for promotion. I can suggest you one: http://designawardsgallery.com/
I use LinkedIn and (to a lesser degree) Facebook. I hadn’t heard of most of these so will certainly be going off to check them out. Thanks for the info.
raf sistemleri
Thanks for article. It’s very informative.
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