If you have the extra cash, you can go through screening platforms like Toptal. It's not the 1% of freelancers they like to advertise, but at least the pool sho

If you have the extra cash, you can go through screening platforms like Toptal. It's not the 1% of freelancers they like to advertise, but at least the pool should be decent. You'll probably also have more success doing outreach. Designers hang out on dribbble, behance, twitter and linkedin. Find a few promising profiles with real life work and contact them. Even if they're not available, they might refer you to one of their contact or post the gig on a design community. You indeed got owned for your attempt #1. For this kind of projects, I'd do a quote based on the delivery and have a deadline fixed. And 2 weeks with no communication with the client sounds insane to me. Platforms like upwork and Fiverr are the jungle. Some people had success on it, I stay away from them.