Designer Search Website
The freelance designer portfolio service, launched February 2006, closed November 2014
The Designer Search website is closed as of November 2014, and the description below is kept for historical reference. In February 2006, the Apparel Search Company launched DesignerSearch.com: a free online fashion portfolio service, built as a meeting ground between fashion and textile designers and the companies searching for design help.
Designer Search was a free tool intended to help fashion and textile industry artists, designers and design studios - and companies searching for assistance with design functions - find one another. Designers used it to post their design portfolios and advertise their talents; potential employers used it to find the artists they wanted to consider working with. In short, a matchmaking service for the design side of the fashion industry.
Company Websites and Design Work
How the Matchmaking Worked
Artists and designers could create and modify a Designer Search profile through a simple administration area. Profiles could include portfolios of design images and contact information, and full-page profiles could carry several images, a link to the designer's own website, a map to the business, a company logo and a photo. Registration was free.
The service stayed out of the deal itself: all communication, design approvals, price negotiations and payments were between the buyer and seller of design services, and Designer Search was not involved in the transactions between artists and employers. The portal was for clothing and textile design only - a boundary that kept the meeting ground focused on the industry it served.
Anonymous Contact for Freelancers
Many designers freelance on the side while maintaining employment elsewhere, and the service was designed with them in mind. A method for anonymous communication let a potential employer contact an artist without seeing the artist's full contact information; only after the designer received the first correspondence and decided to respond would the employer learn the designer's contact details.
Registered users could also submit events for inclusion in the events calendar free of charge - fashion runway shows, design seminars, trade show appearances and other fashion-related events - and submit photos to the site's photo galleries, where high-quality photos of interest to visitors were another way to highlight a business or an area of work.
Finding Design Work
The service was the portfolio half of a pair. A designer seeking freelance or part-time assignments, or a design studio looking for clients, belonged on Designer Search: set up a free account, develop a portfolio of professional biography and images of past and present illustrations, and log in at any time to keep it current. A designer searching for full-time employment in the fashion industry belonged instead on the company's employment sites, such as the Fashion Job Search website linked above.
Designer Search closed in November 2014. Its record - the free profiles, the anonymous first contact, the events and galleries - is kept on this page, and freelance design's place in the guide continues through the design and employment sections of Apparel Search itself.
Common Questions
What was Designer Search?
A free online fashion portfolio service launched by the Apparel Search Company in February 2006 at DesignerSearch.com, matching fashion and textile designers and design studios with companies seeking design help. It closed in November 2014.
How did anonymous communication work?
A potential employer could contact a designer without seeing the designer's full contact information. The designer decided whether to respond, and only then did the employer learn the designer's contact details.
Was Designer Search involved in design deals?
No. Communication, design approvals, price negotiations and payments were strictly between the buyer and seller of design services; the service provided the meeting ground only, for clothing and textile design.
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