If you are searching for a designer, the sites listed above are not the right places, i'd try with 99designs.com or manually searching a designer from dribbble.com.
I think you're right with dribbble. I've also been looking into Behance.net and Creattica. Have you had good experiences with directly approaching designers?
Never had the need for the high quality design the users of those sites provide, yet :)
But even if there isn't an automated process to manage requests, i guess that (1)selecting a few of them, (2)sending a customized project/request description and (3)asking for a quote shouldn't be too much of an overhead, you have to do the most time consuming task (2) even if you decide to use 99designs. The main difference between the two approach will be the price, btw.
Hey, maybe some of you freelance web developers could make a site like Dribbble, but for developers: invite-only, high quality developers, and screenshots/descriptions of completed projects. Maybe client ratings/recommendations too.
Yeah, github is a great way for developers to see what other developers are like, but it doesn't tell you which developers are looking for freelance work, nor does it help nontechnical people figure out who is good (unless it has some recommendation system that I don't know about)
If you decide to go the 99design way (easier maybe) read this: http://blog.trisse.com/2011/05/09/how-to-make-the-most-of-yo...