Best Freelance Places?

So I decided to head back to the field of freelance design and development for a while to help with my plans for the future (aside from my full-time as a UI designer) and I am requesting a little input from you guys on where I could get started.

Back when I lived and breathed freelancing, TF and DP were the main two with tons of active marketplace users, not to mention SitePoint for the larger scaled projects. It seems that things have slowed down since then and I wanted to see if anything new has popped up in the world of freelancing that I should know about. Of course, I will be posting in our marketplace first, but if it would make more sense to expand my resources.

I would like to pick up a few projects this weekend, but I want to go about this the right (or best) way.

Thanks in advance!

Hey there,

I think you have a good shot at landing a project within relatively the same circle of websites (although I do think that DP is not really focused on anything of quality. This forum can be much better. There is a lot of talent here and I want to see more buyers coming by.

The freelancing has changed some with crowdsourcing model becoming more attractive to buyers. I always say that if you are confident in your set of skills, you can always try competing in projects such as 99designs.com.

I actually think that public competition model will allow you to somewhat build up your portfolio, so there is no real downfall. I am not sure I know a lot of buyers who would hire a designer without seeing his work first.

I second 99designs.com, it is a fantastic place to be for a freelancer. I also won a lot of work at scriptlance.com a few years back. Not sure how good that site is today though.

Hey there, I think you have a good shot at landing a project within relatively the same circle of websites (although I do think that DP is not really focused on anything of quality. This forum can be much better. There is a lot of talent here and I want to see more buyers coming by. The freelancing has changed some with crowdsourcing model becoming more attractive to buyers. I always say that if you are confident in your set of skills, you can always try competing in projects such as 99designs.com. I actually think that public competition model will allow you to somewhat build up your portfolio, so there is no real downfall. I am not sure I know a lot of buyers who would hire a designer without seeing his work first.

Well, naturally I will be showing a few of my most recent work, portfolio or not, it will still allow me to show everyone something valuable. I always disliked the crowd competing method, but it's a different approach that could work out to my advantage. I will be sticking with TF and maybe run across DP, along with checking out 99designs.

I second 99designs.com, it is a fantastic place to be for a freelancer. I also won a lot of work at scriptlance.com a few years back. Not sure how good that site is today though

Thanks for the input! 99designs is new to me, so I will definitely be checking that out. Scriptlance is a decent one too, but I never got into it due to the availability of projects on here.

I appreciate the help guys!

Pff, I don't know how I forgot about dedicated marketplaces like:

Elance.com, Guru.com, Odesk.com

Forums like NP - SP - DP are great places for freelance work. You can directly take project from clients and deal with them.

Originally Posted by Bluearrow Forums like NP - SP - DP are great places for freelance work. You can directly take project from clients and deal with them.

Thanks arrow! I completely forgot about the domain forums. Will definitely be checking these out again, good times!

Originally Posted by Bluearrow Forums like NP - SP - DP are great places for freelance work. You can directly take project from clients and deal with them.

What's NP?

NamePros, I believe.

Originally Posted by santa NamePros, I believe.

Yep, NamePros, SitePoint, DigitalPoint. There used to be another fairly big domain forum with a marketplace too. I cannot remember though.