Summary: author bemoans that the notion of "top web designers" in a magazine appears to be based on a measurement of fame, and offers an alternative measurement based on the impressiveness of their client list.
I had this exact same thought. The quality and size of a companies client list has absolutely no bearing on the quality of their design work.
In a vote, I cant think of any mega-corporation sites which would even get a mention, let alone a prize.
The post itself has nothing to do with quality of design. It's about how successful the people and agencies are in business terms. And in business terms money = measure of success.
I would guess the same is less true, but still fairly accurate, about developers. The best developers don't talk about development (at least most of them don't) they just do it. The open source movement, however, has exposed a lot of them to the world. For all of the great, well-known developers in the open source world, there are many, many more great developers toiling away in anonymity in the closed source world.
I've learned this too. Just because someone's well known doesn't mean that they're a good designer or developer. A lot of great people are unknown, even to themselves.
So how does one go about finding a great unknown designer? The only three routes I can think of to find a designer (that I could afford) are:
1 - contest site, 99designs. Might end up with a good design but much of what I see there is average at best.
2 - elance, et al. Hit or miss. Poor over hundreds of profiles and throw a dart at one that looks appealing.
3 - search Google, blogs, message boards,..similar results as #2?
I'm building a new webapp now. In a few weeks, I'll need to engage a designer as this time around I decided not even to attempt it (product looks like hell if I do it).
There are tons of PSD2HTML firms. Its hard enough to pick one of those. How do I even find the right person to create the PSD, especially when I would actually prefer a single person that can do the PSD and the HTML/CSS work as this is someone I can go back to as I need incremental improvements.
From my perspective, this market is still tough to filter though.
> I decided not even to attempt it (product looks like hell if I do it)
You should try reading on the subject though.
Design is not only about how the site looks, it's also about the user's workflow, and if you don't have some good sense on that, your app is going to feel like an ass, no matter how shiny it is. It often happens that the design drives implementation changes.
I also have problems in that area, but I know a good design when I see one, so what I do ... I draw the general layout, and then I search for a design that looks good enough and that fits the layout, and then I steal from that design (only the minimal to make it look decent, while adding elements of my own). Sometimes the result is crappy, sometimes it's decent. Overall it's better than nothing, because you're not too ashamed of giving a link to your friends to get early feedback.
So how do you find a great unknown developer(or a lawyer, accountant, business guy...)? By referrals and knowing people.
Would you consider finding a great developer(one that could afford!), from some hotscripts-site(couldn't think anything similar to 99designs), elance, google and message boards?
Great designers are just as hard to find that great developers or great people in general. And usually they don't work for cents.
I am a great developer, so I know how to identify other great developers. Not so with designers. Sure, we work in the same economy but I'm not connected.
btw, I'm not looking for "cheap". I'm looking to find someone good without going paying the overhead of an expensive firm.
Not mentioned: basing it on their designs.