How Designers and Open Source Projects Get Involved with Open Source Design

Open Source Design (opensourcedesign.net) is a global community of designers, developers, and advocates working to improve the usability of open source software. If you're a designer looking for open source projects to contribute to, or a project maintainer who needs design help, the site gives you four concrete entry points: a job board, community events, a Discourse forum, and a shared resource library. The right starting point depends on whether you want to find work, post work, or just join the conversation.

If you're a designer looking for projects

The fastest route is the job board. At the time of writing, the site lists 14 open design jobs, with 374+ posted by open source projects over the years.

Current listings visible on the homepage include:

• OpenStrap — an open-source fitness app looking for designers
• Apexdeck — logo design
• chadbox — product landing page UI design
• Corro — an accessibility-first board & card game platform, hiring both a front-end developer (UI) and an illustrator/graphic designer

To use it: browse the open jobs list, open a listing that matches your skills, and apply through whatever contact method the posting provides. The site also keeps an archived jobs section, which is useful for seeing what kinds of projects have historically recruited designers and how those roles were scoped.

If you're a project that needs a designer

You can post a job to the same board. This is the community's main mechanism for connecting projects with designers, so it's the natural first step before trying to recruit through the forum or events. The homepage links directly to a "Post a job" action alongside the current listings.

Before posting, it's worth scanning the archived jobs to calibrate how other projects describe scope, deliverables, and whether the role is paid or volunteer — the site itself doesn't publish pricing or payment rules, so those details come from each individual listing.

Join the community conversation

The Discourse forum is where design discussions, project feedback, and community conversations happen. Everyone can read along without an account; joining takes a minute.

Active threads visible on the homepage give a sense of what gets discussed:

This is the place to ask questions, get feedback on a design, or find participants for usability testing. If you're new, the site points you to three orientation reads: about the community, the manifesto, and how to join.

Attend events and monthly calls

Open Source Design runs monthly community calls on the first Wednesday of each month, listed on the community calendar. These are open calls where you can hear what's happening and meet other designers and maintainers.

The community also organizes design tracks at conferences and posts recaps — for example, a recent recap covered helping fund recordings of talks for FOSS Backstage Design 2026. If you want to present, volunteer, or just attend, the events page is the entry point.

Use and contribute to open design tools and resources

The site maintains a list of open source design tools — Penpot, Inkscape, GIMP, Blender, and Krita — plus a broader set of openly licensed resources. These are useful both as alternatives to proprietary tools and as projects that themselves welcome design and documentation contributions.

Choosing your entry point

• Want paid or scoped design work? → Job board (browse open jobs).
• Need a designer for your project? → Post a job.
• Want to discuss, get feedback, or find test participants? → Discourse forum.
• Want to meet people and stay current? → Monthly call (first Wednesday) and conference design tracks.
• Want tools and reusable resources? → Open source design tools and resources pages.

The site's framing is explicit: "Good design should be as open as good code." Whichever path you take, the community expects conversations to happen in the open — so start on the forum or a call if you're unsure where you fit.