Very few developer "find" projects to contribute to. They contribute to the projects that they already use.

I think that's the only sustainable way open-source can work. When you get contributors who don't actually use a project they always drop off sooner or later when life, work, other projects, etc. get in the way.

Maybe this is what you looking for https://opensourcedesign.net/jobs/

Hey Paul! Let’s talk, ping me at kuka (at) xevol.com. I’ve got a few projects that you might be interested in.

Instead of looking for projects that are vocal about their needs for design, you can also find a project where you can provide the ideas for improvement. I think a lot of projects don't even have any designers contributing but would be happy for one to be proactive and help.

Disclaimer: I'm a developer, not a designer.

I got started by doing little tweaks and or fixes here and there. After a while the fixes turned into features and it grew from there. Now I'm preparing the next major release of preactjs (alternative to react that is used in google amp). And yeah... our website is a bit "bare" and designed by coders :D

The most important part about contributing is finding people you love to work with. In the preactjs team we do admire each other's work which makes working with them really fun. But there were also other experiences in my past with other projects where it didn't really work out.

I guess it just depends on finding something that you are passionate about and see if they need a help on the design front (most oss projects do!). That will usually attract like-minded people and you'll spent you're time on something to which you have a connection instead of a random project :)

There was something posted on here a while back... I can't remember the name of the site for the life of me. But, it was the concept of like finding designers for side projects people are working on. I'll see if I can dig it up.

Designed.org is a non-profit that is always looking for design volunteers