Want to work remotely as a graphic designer? Well, we’ve got good news for you – the profession is absolutely suited to online work. There are plenty of remote jobs and freelance jobs out there and highly skilled professionals ought to have a good choice of the work they do.
So, how do you find remote work for graphic designers? Well, given the huge number of positions out there remote job boards are always a good place to look but we’d still give some thought to tapping up your network and reaching out to individual companies before you begin.
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The Advantage Of Using Your Network To Find Remote Work As A Graphic Designer
With a bit of luck, you have signed up for a LinkedIn account by now and that means you’ve kind of formalized your professional network. If not, maybe you’ve got a Facebook account and a few e-mail addresses of people that you know?
The first step in searching for remote work as a graphic designer is to hit up your network using the tools available to you. Why?
Because when you’re recommended to a company by somebody they know and trust, it makes it much easier to seal the deal. You’ll probably have less competition for the work, and you may well be able to negotiate a better package too.
Also, if the work is freelance – it’s more likely that you’ll have the client’s full trust from the beginning of the project; a commodity that can be priceless if you have a few breakdowns in communication later on.
Why You Might Want To Pick And Choose The Company You Work For As A Graphic Designer
Also, before you hit the job boards – you might want to get your thinking cap on and work out which companies you would most like to work for. Then you can approach them directly or better still, you can see if there’s anyone in your LinkedIn network that ties you to that company.
Even an introduction from someone you know, to someone they know, to someone else, to the company can be better than going in cold.
However, if you have to go in cold – don’t be shy about it. Send them a letter explaining why you want to work for them, what you think you can help them achieve and don’t forget to attach your resume.
It can be worth spending a week or two on this activity.
If you can land your dream job – it’s better than getting any old job. Plus, once again – if the company isn’t advertising positions but your resume lands at the right time, you can find yourself with minimal competition for a job and a much easier path to a decent salary and benefits package.
Job Boards That Can Help You Find Remote Work As A Graphic Designer
There are three different categories of job boards out there and we’ve ranked them from best to worst here.
Specialist Design Job Boards For Graphic Designers
We think that there are big advantages to using a specialist job board that serves your profession. They include the fact that you’re going to find many more relevant positions and also be able to see how your industry is shaping up so that you can consider your professional development.
However, the downside is that you’re going to be facing your stiffest competition for these remote jobs – that’s because all the other designers will be following this path too.
Whether you’re a web designer, an animator, a product developer, a UX designer, a UI designer or any other kind of designer – you’re sure to have some luck with sites like.
Dribbble
Our search on Dribbble’s board wasn’t overly impressive. We found 8 vacancies which suggest they may not be the power that they once were when it comes to design work but 8 remote jobs is 8 remote jobs, right? Someone’s got to fill them.
Smashing Magazine
Smashing is one of the biggest publications in the design world and they carry a good range of freelance and remote work. If you’re looking – you really should try Smashing Magazine as part of your remote job search.
Authentic Jobs
We were tempted to take up design ourselves when the first job on the list, when we searched, was working for a legal-weed company. All kidding aside this specialist design jobs board is really good. Check out Authentic Jobs here.
The Generalist Remote Jobs Boards For Graphic Designers
These job boards have a wider-scope and that means you have to filter down a lot when searching for work but… many of them also have a much, much larger user base than the specialist sites – which ought to mean that companies like Indeed or Remote OK can compete with the volumes of quality listings.
If you want to find work as a graphic designer and you haven’t got a job via your network or through direct applications – these job boards are an essential part of your job search.
Indeed
Indeed is the biggest beast with the biggest reach in the online job boards market today. If you’re not looking at what they have to offer – you’re missing out. However, make sure to try different spellings when seeking work “graphic designer” and “graphic design” yield very different sets of results at times.
Flexjobs
A quick note before we begin. Flexjobs is a paid for service. That means you have to pay a monthly fee to Flexjobs to use their services. We are not a Flexjobs affiliated and clicking the link here will not earn us any money. However, that doesn’t change the fact you’ll have to pay if you want to apply for work there. Now, we’re fine with that in principle as it can mean less competition for work, but you need to decide whether it’s worth it or not to you.
We Work Remotely
A big player in the online work world, We Work Remotely, isn’t the biggest source of remote design work but there are some vacancies at that’s good enough for us.
Just Remote
Just Remote seems to get a few vacancies a week for remote design work and that makes it a good option for designers seeking a remote position. We like that it’s simple, clean and easy to use too.
Working Nomads
We’re not overly impressed with Working Nomads as a whole and our search for remote design work wasn’t much better… with around 1 vacancy a month. It’s worth a look but not worth focusing on at all.
Remote OK
Another so-so proposition for remote design work, Remote OK has had 2 jobs in the last month based on our latest search. Again, it’s worth checking but you’re not going to need to come back daily, either.
Remotive
A surprising win comes from Remotive – it may not be a big brand name in the remote work field, just yet but it has a ton of design jobs on the day we searched and it’s outperforming many of the big names.
Atlas and Boots
Atlas and Boots’ endless persistence in spamming digital nomad Facebook groups appears to have paid off in the long-term and they have a ton of design jobs on offer on their site. Most of which ought to be remote positions. (Scroll down a little on the page you land on to find them).
Freelance Job Boards For Graphic Designers
OK, we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel when we get to this point. Freelance bidding sites and sites like 99designs (which are mainly about entering contests to win work) are the base of the pyramid of online jobs.
There are plenty of opportunities for graphic designers to find remote work here (as there are in every profession) but those opportunities tend to be poorly paid, there are regular scams perpetuated on workers (which the job boards are pretty awful at cracking down on) and the competition for work is fierce.
The most common sites are:
Please though, whatever you do, avoid the contests. Doing a ton of work in the hope that a client picks you out of 50-100 entries? That’s a really bad business strategy. It means that you value your work at roughly 2% of what they pay for a successful entry. 10% at the most if you really are amazing.
We’d like to see these contests banned. They are simply a way to take massive advantage of freelancers and let’s be fair about this, enough freelance work is already badly paid and comes with no benefits, there’s no good reason to leave you with nothing at all for working hard. But it’s your call at the end of the day – we can’t stop you from doing this kind of thing, either.
Conclusion
There are plenty of places you can find remote work for graphic designers online: your personal network, by applying directly to companies you want to work for, through specialist and generalist job boards and through freelance job boards. Good luck in your search!