With all due respect, that is what hiring a designer is all about. The biggest complaint from actual designers about sites like 99designs is that design is an iterative process not an off-the-shelf product.
Relying on your artsy friends for design makes about as much sense as relying on your techie friends to build a website. Maybe you can get a favor if you happen to have a connection, but it certainly doesn't scale for a long term business decision.
That said, you can look at portfolio type sites like http://sortfolio.com/ to get an idea of style. Find one to your liking and see what their rates are. It's like talking to a tattoo artist about an idea versus buying one off the wall.
I guess I was assuming that these weren't serious web sites. Like, the OP said that they worked on a plethora of projects which sounded, to me, like lots of little side projects. I think it's ideal to work with artsy friends on those just like you'd work with techie friends. If you're doing something serious, clearly it's an employment thing not a buddy thing. However, sometimes you're doing a nice little project in your spare time and it's nice to build it with a friend who has a good visual sensibility and if it doesn't take off you've both spent some hours working on something cool and if it does take off you can continue working together.
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With all due respect, that is what hiring a designer is all about. The biggest complaint from actual designers about sites like 99designs is that design is an iterative process not an off-the-shelf product.
Relying on your artsy friends for design makes about as much sense as relying on your techie friends to build a website. Maybe you can get a favor if you happen to have a connection, but it certainly doesn't scale for a long term business decision.
That said, you can look at portfolio type sites like http://sortfolio.com/ to get an idea of style. Find one to your liking and see what their rates are. It's like talking to a tattoo artist about an idea versus buying one off the wall.
I guess I was assuming that these weren't serious web sites. Like, the OP said that they worked on a plethora of projects which sounded, to me, like lots of little side projects. I think it's ideal to work with artsy friends on those just like you'd work with techie friends. If you're doing something serious, clearly it's an employment thing not a buddy thing. However, sometimes you're doing a nice little project in your spare time and it's nice to build it with a friend who has a good visual sensibility and if it doesn't take off you've both spent some hours working on something cool and if it does take off you can continue working together.