Hey, I read CDN all the time but never checked out the forums. I have a question and figured the type of person I'm looking for would best be able to answer my questions.

Essentially I want to hire a designer for a contract job but its out of my own pocket and it can't be that much money. As an engineering student I'm lucky to have some good paying workterms so I'm looking at the range of paying $500 - $1000 USD for the job. So its not the kind of money that I could hire a design firm for an auto design so hoping that this range could be suitable for a student or amateur designer.

Three Questions

1) What level of skill could such a meager amount fetch?

2) How should I go about finding someone? Best to post it up with the price range somewhere or contact some students/amateurs through the CDN portfolios? Or something else?

3) I don't want to be put in a situation where the design concepts are not in the direction I want. Is it common or acceptable to break up a contract into two parts. First part of payment for concepts and second part for developing a model upon accepting concepts(computer model, the money I could pay wouldn't cover the clay I don't think for a scale)

Thanks and feel free to be as honest as possible. I know that this would be asking a lot of an individual for really a cut rate price, but as a student myself I've sold myself cheap to try and push my career in the right direction.

Hi Keith

I saw your post at Car Design News, I suggest you to contract a design firm in a development country where the profile of their designers is “Car Designer”, maybe you can pay even less then that to make the job, count on a team if you need, make a short term contract, make a brake for the project and resign whenever you need.

You can also pay depending on your satisfaction, or only for the work that is done.

My company is in Ecuador, South America and I studied at Scuola Politecnica di Design in Milan Italy maybe you can try with us

Saludos

Boris Mantilla