Are you dreaming about swapping that drab cubicle backdrop for something a little more vibrant? Or maybe you’re just on the hunt for some spunky freelance projects to sprinkle a dash of excitement into your work life? Well, you’re in luck! I’ve gathered a whopping list of 101 hotspots that are just brimming with designer job opportunities. It’s like a treasure map for your career!
Navigating this vast sea of job resources can be daunting, I know. We’ve all been there—opening tab after tab until our browser looks like a crowded subway train during rush hour. So, to save you from digital chaos, I’ve broken down this extensive list into manageable, bite-sized categories. It’s kind of like a tapas bar, you can pick and choose what you want!
Of course, some of these job boards are like the multi-talented folks we all know and admire—they comfortably fit into more than one category. To keep things simple (and to spare you from the potential confusion), I’ve tagged each one to the category that I felt was the best fit. So, wink wink 😉, dive right in and start your exciting career adventure! Remember, you got this, and I’m here cheering you on!
Designer Job Boards
When you’re on the hunt for designer job boards, you’ll come across sites that cater specifically to design and creative roles. While some of these job boards might be a more perfect match than others, keep in mind that the companies posting jobs there may be a bit clueless about the exact type of designer they’re after 😉. So remember, you’ve just got to keep searching until you find the spot that feels like your perfect design-job-home!
1. Dribbble
The majority of job postings on Dribbble are for full-time positions, which means there’s a great chance you’ll find the perfect fit for your career goals. Plus, Dribbble is like a designer’s paradise, focusing on design-related jobs and attracting a fantastic mix of companies, from small startups to large enterprises.
2. 99Designs
99Designs started out as a crowdsourcing design contest type of marketplace. They are currently in the process of transitioning into a job board for freelancers. The website can be great to find small gigs that can often be completed within a few hours.
3. Behance
Behance is probably the closest competitor to Dribbble. They are owned by Adobe and share many of the same listings with Dribbble, which isn’t a bad thing. I’m not sure if summer is a bad time of the year to hire people, but I noticed that their inventory of job listings is relatively small.
4. Coroflot
Coroflot is a designer community that lets you create a portfolio, aggregates designer salary information (self-reported) and offers a job board. At my time of research, there were 325 active job listings in various designer categories.
5. AIGA Design Jobs
AIGA is “the professional association for design” a membership organization for designers. The job board currently has around 180 active listings and ranging from designer to art director. In comparison to the more tech-focused job boards here you can also find more traditional roles.
6. Krop
Krop is a portfolio hosting site that also offers a job board. Employers can find you by searching the database for interesting portfolios or you can directly apply to positions.
7. Design Observer
Design Observer currently has more than 300 active job postings. They keep jobs only active for 90 days so you don’t waste your time applying to companies that have already filled the position. The postings are also distributed to other sites like Coroflot and HOW.
8. CreativeHotlist
The website looks a bit older, but there are still many relevant job opening listed here. CreativeHotlist also lets you sort postings by industry helping eliminate postings that are not a good fit.
9. DeviantArt
DeviantArt is the largest social network for artists and art enthusiasts. There are more than 40 million registered users on the platform, but jobs for artists are not a focus. The only place to find work (primarily small projects) is in their forum’s jobs/offers section. Nevertheless, there is a good amount of new projects appearing every day.
10. Artrepreneur
Artrepreneur is another community for artists. Users can sell or catalog their art, participate in competitions and create a portfolio. Nevertheless, they also have a job board primarily targeting freelancers. They have a good amount of positions, but you definitely need to spend some time searching for the right fit.
11. HOW Design
HOW helps designers find resources like tips and education to stay up-to-date. They share a job board with Coroflot and Design Observer. There are currently 325 active listings in their job board.
12. Designed
Designed is a non-profit organization focused on career growth for designers. They have a network of mentors from all around the world and offer a nice way to host your portfolio. The jobs are inside their web app so you’ll need to create an account to view their listings.
13. Love Design Jobs
Love Design Jobs is listed in the specialized category, but they could also be moved into the general category. You’ll definitely find designer jobs here, but it seems like they are shifting focus a bit and are starting to show primarily software developer type jobs.
14. Creative Bloq
The job listings from Creative Bloq seem to have been merged with Love Design Jobs.
15. Society for Experiential Graphic Design
The society for experiential graphic design is a non-profit that brings together designers from various disciplines. Their job board looked pretty organized and the listings had much of the information that other boards are lacking. Including salary, industry and required education.
16. CreativeHeads
CreateHeads usually gets a few new listings every day. They attract listings from companies like Ubisoft, Activision, Garmin and more. The website looks a bit older, but at least the listings seem to be up-to-date.
17. Aquent
Aquent is a staffing agency for the creative industry. On their job board, they list positions for companies that they have a relationship with. If you want to apply to any position listed on their website, you’ll need to create an account.
18. Design Gigs for Good
If you are a designer who wants to do good and affect social change, this is the place for you. The gigs and jobs listed in this designer job board are all aimed at some kind of world betterment 👍
19. iHire Commercial Art
iHire Commercial Art is a job board with the sole focus on commercial art professionals. They are working with companies like Panera Bread, Goodwill and New York Life. Currently, there are about 3600 open positions on the platform.
20. theCreativeloft
theCreativeloft has a lot of positions, but I’m not sure how old some of those are 😉. However, there are definitely a good number of new entries showing up every day. Unfortunately, you’ll need to register an account to see the company behind each job advertisement.
21. iF World Design Guide
iF focuses on jobs in the fields of design, architecture and interior design. They currently have 170 job listings from all around the world. Some of the companies listing here include Lenovo, Samsung, Warner Bros, Nike and Google.
22. Carbonmade
Carbonmoade is primarily a hosting site that allows users to create beautiful design portfolios. I couldn’t find a traditional job board type of list, but companies are definitely using the site’s “talentpool” search to find interesting candidates.
23. Open Source Design
Open Source Design is an advocate for open-source software. They are a community of designers and developers that primarily list jobs and gigs for companies who are primarily working with open-source software.
24. DSGNJBS
DSGNJBS (better bookmark the URL) is an aggregator for design jobs. The author publishes jobs from sites like Dribbble and Behance on his Twitter account and this website. I’d probably prefer to just follow him on Twitter than trying to remember the website’s name.
25. Designer Hangout
Designer Hangout is a Slack based global UX community. Members are pre-vetted and then added to their Slack Server. Fortunately, they post job openings publicly on their website. Usually, there are a few listings coming in every week.
26. Get Graphic Design Jobs
Get Graphic Design Jobs, the name says it all 👽 If you are not trying to archive inbox zero every day, you might want to subscribe to their newsletter to get new opportunities directly to your mailbox.
27. Art Jobs @ Artsearch
This website focuses primarily on job listings that fall into the categories art, culture and education. You can browse their listings for free and don’t need to sign up for an account. However, if you do, you can also submit your resume.
28. DesignFirms
DesignFirms is primarily a database of design firms from around the globe. In their jobs section, they list “creative” jobs in general. You can find positions for graphic designers, art directors as well as website developers. They are also usually getting a few new listings every day.
29. DesigningCrossing
DesignCrossing is a job listings aggregator with a primary focus on designer jobs. I like that they offer a lot of advanced search functionality and they seem to have a pretty big database. For example, right now they show about 18,000 jobs for graphic designers.
30. Designmodo
Designmodo offers email and website builders as well as articles about design trends. They have a beautiful website, but the job board feels a bit limited to me. There are only a few postings coming in every week.
31. Smashing Magazine
Smashing is a magazine primarily catered towards web designers and developers. In their job board, you can choose between two main categories “Design jobs” and “Programming jobs”.
32. Working Not Working
Working Working is a website that connects creatives with companies looking for some design help. You can create a profile with a portfolio on their website or search for jobs. I couldn’t find a traditional list of jobs so you might have to do some searching for yourself.
Remote Job Boards
This is the right category if you are looking for a work from home, remote or telecommute job. Most of these job sites offer various positions in all kinds of industries so filtering and searching are definitely recommended for good results.
33. Flexjobs
Flexjobs is a job search site for remote, part-time, freelance and generally flexible jobs. There are lots of well-known companies advertising on their job board and there are currently over 10,000 active design jobs listed.
34. NODESK
NODESK is a blog for digital nomads and remote workers. They have various articles about working remotely and offer a job board that solely focuses on remote work. At this moment, they have 105 open design position.
35. Remotive
Remotive is a community and job board for remote workers. They have a weekly job newsletter that they send out and usually add a few new remote design jobs every week.
36. We Work Remotely
We Work Remotely is a job board for remote jobs from around the world. The community is very big, but the number of jobs published per week feels very limited.
37. Working Nomads
Working Nomads is an aggregator for remote and telecommuting jobs. They currently have 1300 jobs listed in their design category, but many of those are multiple months old (some of the positions are over a year old).
38. Remote.co
I believe that Remote.co is owned by Flexjobs, so I don’t know how many of their job listings overlap. At this point, there were only 62 matching jobs for the keyword “designer”.
39. Jobspresso
Jobspresso’s remote job board focuses on jobs primarily in technology, marketing and customer service. Given that design falls into the tech category they also show some job listings. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a count so I don’t know how big their designer job database really is.
40. RemoteOk
RemoteOK is a big list of remote positions at various companies. They are usually getting a few new designer job listings per week, but it was difficult for me to determine how many of their listings are still current because some of them are over 5 years old.
41. Workew
Workew is a remote job board for digital nomads. The website lists jobs in various categories including design, development, marketing and operations. I couldn’t find a count of how many active listings are currently on the site.
42. 100 Telecommute Jobs
100 Telecommute Jobs is a job board that promotes work from home and telecommuting jobs. It looks like they are keeping job postings updated and I found a few hundred designer type jobs on their platform.
43. Remotees
Remotees is a remote job aggregator that monitors sites with “remote-friendly positions”. The jobs are aggregated from places like Behance, StackOverflow and RemoteOk. If you find it difficult checking those websites individually then this site could be a good fit for you.
44. Remote4me
Remote4Me is another remote job aggregator that gets jobs from a long list of sources. The website also offers email updates so that could be an easy way to stay on top of things.
Crowdsourcing Contests
Some people love them and some people hate them, crowdsourced design contests. The idea is that multiple designers compete against each other for the same project by submitting design drafts. At the end of the contest, the client chooses one winning design for which only that particular designer will be paid.
45. Designhill
Designhill offers contests, custom services and freelance designers. So if you don’t like designer contests it might still make sense for you to check them out. It is also a great project to make a little bit of money quickly e.g. by designing a logo.
46. DesignCrowd
Besides offering crowdsourced design contests, DesignCrowd is also a marketplace for designers to sell their graphics and designs. For example, you could upload your old logo designs and offer customizations for a small fee.
47. crowdSPRING
Crowdspring is a marketplace for custom graphic design work including logos, websites and products. The website primarily focuses on crowdsourced design contests that allow you to compete with other designers for a particular project.
48. designContest
DesignContest is a crowdsourced design contest community that also offers 1-on-1 projects. Currently, there are over 200,000 designers who have participated in over 10,000 contests.
Gigs and Freelancer Job Boards
For some it is just a little weekend side-hustle for others, freelancing has become a way of life and lucrative career. Following are some of the most popular freelancing job sites.
51. Freelancer
52. Guru
53. People Per Hour
54. SolidGigs
55. Hubstaff Talent
56. CloudPeeps
57. Outsourcely
Social Media Groups
I’ve had some great success hiring designers via social media. Especially, Reddit has been a great platform for small projects. In the social media category, you’ll find relevant subreddits and Facebook groups for designer jobs.
Startup & Tech Job Boards
Always wanted to work for the next billion-dollar 🦄 startup? Here is your chance. The following is a list of job boards that primarily offer designer jobs at tech companies or startups. Some of the jobs on these websites come from companies like Shopify, Facebook, Pinterest and more.
61. Startup.Jobs
62. Angel.co
63. StackOverflow
64. VentureLoop
67. CrunchBoard
68. Work In Startup
69. Toptal
General Job Boards
These are your old-fashion job boards that your school counselor was talking about 👍 Besides the big names like Moster, LinkedIn, Indeed etc. I’ve also included a few smaller job sites that you might have not heard of yet.
72. Glassdoor
73. SimplyHired
74. ZipRecruiter
75. CareerBuilder
79. Careerjet
80. Authentic Jobs
81. Robert Half
89. Snag
92. MediaBistro
93. Creative Niche
UK and Europe Job Boards
For my friends across the Atlantic Ocean a list of job boards that focus primarily on the UK and Europe. Generally, I think there is a good mix of different types of positions on these job boards. Some of them focus on remote and freelancing, while others are a good place to find traditional fulltime work.
95. If You Could
96. Design Week
100. EuropeRemotely
Internship Boards
Are you just starting out in your career as a designer? Check out the places in the design internships category. So far I could only find one place that primarily focuses on internships, but please reach out if you know any others.
101. Chegg Internships
