November 13, 2026
Best sites to find icon design jobs
The best places to find icon design jobs are Dribbble and Behance for portfolio-led discovery, r/forhire and r/designjobs for fresh public posts, and 99designs for contest-style work. Pick one portfolio site and one fresh-post source, then send short, specific pitches with two or three relevant icon samples.
What makes icon design jobs hard to find?
Icon projects are usually small pieces of larger design work: a 24-icon set for a dashboard, app icons for a launch, a custom set for a brand. They tend to be listed under "UI design", "graphic design" or "illustration" rather than "icon design". Searching only for the word "icon" misses a lot, so on every site below also search "icon set", "app icon", "UI assets" and "iconography".
Which sites are best for icon design jobs?
Dribbble: best if you have a polished icon portfolio
Dribbble Jobs lists UI/UX, graphic design and illustration roles, and browsing is free. It suits designers who already have consistent icon shots (same grid, stroke weight, corner radius) because hiring teams often judge from your profile first.
How to land a first gig: Post a complete icon set as a single shot series, not one-off icons. Tag shots clearly ("icon set", "app icon"). Then apply to listings that mention product or UI design and link the matching shots in your application.
Behance: best for case-study style work
Behance's job list covers creative design roles and is free to use. It suits designers who can show process: grid construction, style exploration, and the icons in context inside an app mockup.
How to land a first gig: Publish one case study showing a problem (for example, an unclear navigation) and your icon set solving it. Link that project in every application.
r/forhire and r/designjobs: best for fresh, direct requests
r/forhire (about 1.3M members) and r/designjobs (about 150K members) carry direct posts from people who need design help now. Member counts change, so check each subreddit for current figures. On r/forhire, search for "designer" or "design" in [Hiring] posts. On r/designjobs, check the [Hiring] flair.
How to land a first gig: Reply early, with a short message: one sentence on what you understood about their project, two relevant icon samples, your turnaround estimate, and a question about the icon count and style. Avoid pasting a generic portfolio link with no context. Read each subreddit's rules before replying, and watch for vague posts offering "exposure" instead of pay.
r/Design: best for networking, not direct applications
r/Design (about 400K members) is mostly discussion and critique. It suits designers who want feedback on icon work and a way to meet people who later need a designer. Treat it as a long game, not a job board.
99designs: best for contest-style practice
99designs runs logo and branding design contests, and fees vary by contest. App icon contests appear there too. It suits designers who want practice against real briefs, but contests mean unpaid speculative work if you do not win, so enter selectively and read the current terms on the site first.
Sidequestboard: best for catching fresh public posts quickly
Sidequestboard is a dashboard that pulls fresh freelance and opportunity posts from public communities into one feed, so you are not checking several subreddits and tabs by hand. You can save posts, open the original source to respond directly, and draft a first reply that you edit before sending. It suits designers who already have a portfolio and want to reply while a post is still fresh. It does not host jobs or guarantee any work: you still pitch and win the project yourself.
You can browse a sample of freelance design and illustration jobs posted today to see what kind of posts show up. Get Sidequestboard on the App Store for iPhone if that workflow fits you.
How do you choose between these options?
| If you... | Start with |
|---|---|
| Have a polished icon set, no clients yet | Dribbble + Behance |
| Want to pitch fast on live requests | r/forhire, r/designjobs, or a feed that collects them |
| Want practice against briefs | 99designs |
| Want feedback and connections | r/Design |
A workable setup is one portfolio site plus one fresh-post source. Spreading across all six means thin effort everywhere.
How much can icon designers charge?
Icon-specific rates vary widely, so use adjacent benchmarks as a rough guide rather than a quote: UI design is often $50-150/hr, graphic design $30-100/hr, and illustration $50-500+ per illustration. These are general ranges from our research reference, not guarantees. For a first icon set, quote per icon or per set with a fixed number of revisions, and state what file formats (SVG, PNG, Figma) you deliver.
What does a good first pitch look like? (Example)
Imagine a [Hiring] post: "Need 20 line icons for a budgeting app." A strong reply might read:
Hi, I read that you need 20 line icons for a budgeting app. I design on a 24px grid with a consistent 2px stroke, and I've attached two sets in that style. I can deliver SVG and Figma files in six days with two revision rounds. Could you share the icon list and whether you want rounded or sharp corners?
This works because it restates the brief, shows relevant samples, gives a timeline, and asks a useful question.
What should you do next?
- Build one consistent icon set of at least 12 icons on a single grid.
- Publish it on Dribbble or Behance with context.
- Pick one or two Reddit communities and reply to new posts quickly.
- Save a pitch template and edit it for every project.
If icons are one part of your range, these guides cover neighboring niches: book cover design jobs, brand design jobs and infographic design jobs.