I suggest you stop asking people to work for you for free.
Ask HN: 99designs or crowdspring for large-format illustration work?
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Re: Ask HN: 99designs or crowdspring for large-format illustration work?
#12As a designer I hate 99designs and similar sites. They completely rip off designers. Instead, find a designer you like, or post a job offer, here even, and pay them. If you can, stay away from 99designs.
How would you, as a designer, recommend people get low-budget work done? Is it that most of the designers don't get paid at all or the lowish price that the winner gets that offends? There is a huge appeal in having a designer "try out" - I've been burned by designers who couldn't get the work done to my satisfaction. It was a waste of my time and money. It would have been very easy to weed them out with a simple "au…
I think there's a lot of range within design work so a smaller step up gets you exponentially better work. For example, $250 logo may be 10 times better than a $25 logo but a $2,500 logo might only be 1.5 or 2 times as good as the $250 one.
$15,000 for 4 pages of HTML is ridiculous, as is $150 for 4 pages. $1,500 should get you amazing work. I do a lot of work coding design to HTML/CSS and without being over-confident, I'd classify my skill in HTML and CSS as expert level. I charge around $200-$250 a page if coding directly from a PSD or image to HTML/CSS. Charging 15 to 20 times as much? I struggle to understand it.
If you want a designer on a mid-low budget, you can try Elance or oDesk, but set the hourly price you're looking for at $30-$50. There are good designers using those services but you need to get their attention.