Is there an image design community that collaborates with developers to create applications with a better and more polished look and feel?

Question

So after a lot of hard (and fun) work in development I’ve finally gotten fairly close to the end of my application development..or so I thought. I’m developing a game for Android (but that’s irrelevant to this post). Up until now, the images/drawables I was using were placeholders that took 5 minutes in MSPaint to create. So, now that I have a working game, I started trying to create a visually stimulating game interface. In doing so, I have come to realize that it is really tough, especially since I have virtually zero experience in image design. Ultimately, I’m now questioning the ability of my game to be successful without a polished game interface that I feel most users would expect nowadays.

Are there individuals willing to collaborate on an application? Is there a community of designers that are content to do work and in return receive only their name attached to an application? Am I sunk unless I want to fork over a pretty penny to a designer? What options do I have and where can I go to put the “illustrations in my book” so to speak?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Is there a community of designers that are content to do work and in return receive only their name attached to an application

Just looking at this sentence should send off bells in your head. If there is someone who is already an expert at doing this, then they would likely charge a non-trivial amount for their time. If you want to do this for free, you will likely get what you pay for.

Unfortunately, you will most likely see a delay in the completion of the game while all of this is sorted out. Creation of a "polished" interface is difficult and time consuming, and certainly not an afterthought. Next time around, you should think very hard about getting someone involved much earlier in the process.

If I were in your shoes, I would probably go to your nearest graphic design school and put up flyers / talk with the career center / etc. You may get a few people to bite just to get a shipping game on their resume.

Answer 2

There is a young community called Build It With Me which tries to connect designers and developers. I think it is a neat idea since you can decide how to work together. Meaning on how to compensate, too. But nobody will work for free so that you can sell your application. You can

• Offer equity, e.g. 40% of every item sold, but you will have to convince a designer that it will be successful enough to spend the time and effort
• Offer an hourly rate or a fixed price (following the "You have to spend money to make money"). If you are really convinced that it will be a success you would be willing to spend money on it, too
• Make it open source. If it is a good application you might find people that want to contribute their design skill to the project. But the only way then to make money is to e.g. offer premium services (for which you again need people that can implement them, but it will be easier to get your app "out there"). Additionally I think, that the open source thought in the design community is a little different than with programmers.