As you know searching for Web Designers on Google is pretty useless…
So I decided to put together a list of sites that showcase professional web designers and their work.
Enjoy!

1. Browse through the sites and evaluate the skills of the designers by the work they have created.
2. Then send a few designers an inquiry and tell them what kind of site you need.
3. After you have received and compared the quotes choose one designer to work with.

Note: Michael Heald is specialized in creating sites for game developers as you can see from his portfolio.

Sortfolio

• A site that lets you search for web designers by budget.

Awwwards

• A collection of nicely designed websites. Simply click on a site that you like and you will see the contact information of the designer.

Behance

• Click on “All Creative Fields” and select “Web Design”. Then click on “by [Name]” below the preview of the site to see the contact information of the designer.

Creattica

• Click on “Inspiration” and then on “HTML / CSS”. Then click on “by [Name]” below the preview of the site to see the contact information of the designer. You can also click on “Creatives” and then choose “Web Designer” as the profession.

dribbble

• Click on “Explore” and then on “tags”. Now click on the appropriate tags such as “webdesign, web design, website, wordpress…”

Folyo

• Click on “Browse designers” and then choose “Web Design” under the “Filter by skills” category.

CSS Design Awards

• Browse the site to find nicely designed websites and contact information of their designers.

Carbonmade

• The Carbonmade Talent Pool is not available yet (but is “coming soon” according to the site).

Ask a Premium WordPress Theme Designer

• Some of the designers who sell Premium WordPress Themes will probably also do some freelance work.
  Find them on The Big List of Premium WordPress Themes

Use Twitter Lists

You can also use Twitter to find web designers…

1.) You just need a proper web designer as a starting point (for example Michael Heald)
2.) Click on “Lists” and then on “Member of” on his profile to see in which lists he appears.
3.) Click on such a list to find more web designers one has packed into that list
4.) Click on “List members” to see the listed people instead of a stream of tweets.
5.) Visit their sites and check out their portfolios.
6.) Rinse and repeat until you have found a few web designers that you want to contact…

Some more Twitter Lists: One, Two, Three, Four, Five

Ask Site Owners

Another way to find a potential web designer is to check out sites that you like design wise and then look if the web designer is mentioned in the footer (“website design by …”). If this shouldn’t be the case you can also ask the site owner if he can tell you who is responsible for the fine design.

Zerply and Coroflot

You can also search for designers on Zerply and Coroflot.