Design Forums

[Quacker Jack]

I brought this up somewhere else and I'm going to also mention it here. It is one of those things that actually got me into looking at promotion forums.

Many of you guys may or may not of noticed but I am picking up very gradually on Photoshop. I'm extremely interested in the area of design (particularly web design with logos and web concepts) and I want to play around in it. However, many of the big designs forums I knew and loved are gone. As you are all probably aware, many of the biggest design forums around proboards are gone. We lost mAs a long time ago, and more recently Slightly Insane, and The Art Forums (okay, went dead, not "gone"). And it isn't just proboards. I've spent possibly the last 3 months looking for an actually decently designed design forum with members with decent talent. And frankly, I just hear more and more about design forums closing down due to inactivity / lack of time. Granite, we got Kik's forum, but out of the many million forums that have been advertised at Forum Promotion, there are frankly just no design forums out there. Actually, I can take that back. There is Encide - the forum I want to gain admission to, and I have people on the "encide", but I first need to become more talented, familiar, and experienced.

I would love to make a design forum, but probably don't. You see, design forums are typically destined to fail. I see three different types of design forums: we got what I call "gfx" forums (where people think using GIMP is the same thing as using Photoshop to make the industry standard, and where the just make little sigs all day [and frankly, some users here fall in this category, I'm not trying to offend you, but I'm making a point lol]), we got well constructed design forums that semi-good people make (which have about a 50% chance of lasting maybe 3 years and a 50% chance of lasting less than 6 months, due to the lack of interest in design), and we got the really amazing design communities that are made into invite-only (Encide, DesignerCouch, etc.). Gfx forums will do moderately okay, because it is easier for people to be a part of - a forum with amateurs who think making a small adjustment to a sig makes them godlike designer pros. Their forums typically last 6-12 months thriving until the admin loses interest and shuts the forum down. And we got design forums, where the honest person who is pretty good at Photoshop (yes, Photoshop, not GIMP). And the high-up places speak to themselves - the place to be. There is no point of me attempting to make a design forum. Unless I magically gathered a team of people who are pretty good with Photoshop and have tried numerous things (including but not limited to web design, logos, templates, emoticons, sig, avatar, photomanip, etc.) where we made it awesome, it would fail within a year or two. Guaranteed. [Actually, design forums we could really use - if some people REALLY did want to make like a design forum and we could prove to each other we were up for it and good with the Creative Suite 3/4/5, then I'd be game.]

*sigh* Design forums just make me sad, but is really what we need.

My question is to you all: What happened to the design communities go? I've been in foruming enough to know that typically when one genre dies because people don't have time to maintain their forums, typically somebody pops up with another forum of that genre that saves the day. But I'm not seeing that so much with the design community. Does this mean graphic design is declining as well? What do you guys make of this?

PS: Also, I want it to be clear that I don't think I'm "awesome" at design either. I really do have a passion in this.

 

[Cam]

I'd like to get into designing more, but I tend to prefer other things, and I still use GIMP. I am not interested in using PhotoShop illegally by most people. Design forums are declining. Not that long ago, GFXDrop was being promoted here, and the forum was quite nice, but the Administrator closed it. And just right next to this quick reply box, is the Featured Forums section, Graphic Force is in it, which is Kik's forum, which seems to be in good shape. On ProBoards in general, designers have disappeared. It seems most have went into bigger things. Same for coding as well. I have a friend who is a regular ProBoards coder who is starting their own forum host, and I am friends with two coders who are constructing their own forum softwares. I also know a designer who designed amazing ProBoards themes for a few months, and now he is designing PhpBB3 themes. Smangii is just busy, I am not sure if he does anything designing anymore. There used to be designing forums all over the place on ProBoards, and now there is a few, and they aren't even very good. It seems to be that there is a very large base of users that would really like to see another ProBoards design forum like Slightly Insane. Slightly Insane was amazing, and it still is; it is a huge collection of anything designing-wise you can imagine.

 

[Quacker Jack]

I'd like to get into designing more, but I tend to prefer other things, and I still use GIMP. I am not interested in using PhotoShop illegally by most people. Design forums are declining. Not that long ago, GFXDrop was being promoted here, and the forum was quite nice, but the Administrator closed it. And just right next to this quick reply box, is the Featured Forums section, Graphic Force is in it, which is Kik's forum, which seems to be in good shape. On ProBoards in general, designers have disappeared. It seems most have went into bigger things. Same for coding as well. I have a friend who is a regular ProBoards coder who is starting their own forum host, and I am friends with two coders who are constructing their own forum softwares. I also know a designer who designed amazing ProBoards themes for a few months, and now he is designing PhpBB3 themes. Smangii is just busy, I am not sure if he does anything designing anymore. There used to be designing forums all over the place on ProBoards, and now there is a few, and they aren't even very good. It seems to be that there is a very large base of users that would really like to see another ProBoards design forum like Slightly Insane. Slightly Insane was amazing, and it still is; it is a huge collection of anything designing-wise you can imagine.

I don't use it illegally. 😉

And for the record, proboards killed their design community.

 

[Cam]

I don't use it illegally. 😉

And for the record, proboards killed their design community.

Most people do.
I can't afford it, I am planning on getting it in the future.

 

[David]

That's because "design forums" aren't the way to go any more. Designers today focus on design blogs (Tuts+ Network, Smashing Mag) and design communities (eg. dribbble, forrst), rather than forums. One forum that does come into mind, although isn't mainly a forum, is the Envato Marketplaces forums, which does have some sections for design discussion.

But if you place this into perspective, what can you discuss on a design forum which can't be discussed on big blogs? Anyway, if you do a Google search for Graphic/Web Design Forums, you'll get results like Estetica and AGD. These are professionally run forums, meant for people who take design as a career though.

 

[Quacker Jack]

That's because "design forums" aren't the way to go any more. Designers today focus on design blogs (Tuts+ Network, Smashing Mag) and design communities (eg. dribbble, forrst), rather than forums. One forum that does come into mind, although isn't mainly a forum, is the Envato Marketplaces forums, which does have some sections for design discussion.

But if you place this into perspective, what can you discuss on a design forum which can't be discussed on big blogs? Anyway, if you do a Google search for Graphic/Web Design Forums, you'll get results like Estetica and AGD. These are professionally run forums, meant for people who take design as a career though.

Most people who own any higher up forum or blog (especially blog) obviously takes design as a profession. I know people at unis at well studying design.

 

[AnAccount]

I think the one reason graphic design forums don't always get off the ground is because people only go there for what they need, but they don't bother to post on the forum. Or if it's a case of you have to earn so many points to request (sort of like forum currency) then people would only post to get the amount of points they need so that they can request what they want and then leave. It's basically along the same lines of many of today's promotion forums, just about. You go there just long enough to get what you want out of it and then you got it and you're done. That's why most of those sites don't go over very well, no matter how nice they look or no matter how much potential they might have.

 

[David]

I think the one reason graphic design forums don't always get off the ground is because people only go there for what they need, but they don't bother to post on the forum. Or if it's a case of you have to earn so many points to request (sort of like forum currency) then people would only post to get the amount of points they need so that they can request what they want and then leave. It's basically along the same lines of many of today's promotion forums, just about. You go there just long enough to get what you want out of it and then you got it and you're done. That's why most of those sites don't go over very well, no matter how nice they look or no matter how much potential they might have.

But that's completely "admin/webmaster" oriented mindset. The graphics section you see on FP is not an accurate reflection of quality graphics forums. A graphics forum isn't there for requests for forum administrators, rather the complete opposite. Quality graphics forums have graphics discussions, show offs, tutorials, premium sections and rarely a request forum for forum administrators. Your reason doesn't really qualify as those who you suggested are opening graphics forums for the completely wrong reason and completely wrong group of people, which is the real reason why they don't work. Those who open up forums for administrators to request graphics is a terrible way to go as the people who they are trying to get aren't graphic designers at all, they are forum administrators, so that's where they tend to fail in. One reason as to why this happens is that they are caught up with forums like FP which has a request section and think this is what a graphics forum is, and then advertises on forums like FP and finds people requesting graphics, which is completely the wrong way to go.

 

[Tovarisch]

The problem is that design community are not quality driven, but driven by activity.

gForce is an example of this. I wouldnt conisder it a design forum at all, its a "graphics forum". People with an ounce of profesionalism, maturity or skill tend to steer clear of such places.

My favourite design community would have to be Enicide (a forum), followed by DesignersCouch, which is more of a network.
These places are geared towards quality rather than traffic or acitivity. But because they are geared towards quality, they develop activity. Both communities are via invitation only.
I know encide is rutheless in removing threats to the quality of the community, with things like sigs or anime being completly banned.

Blogs arent communities, make no mistake. They are money making machines. The TutPlus network tries to hold a certain quality (wich i feel the bar needs to be raised slightly higher), but it isnt a community.
Read through the comments, your unlikely to find a discussion on techniques or uses, but varations of "Nice" and "I dont like it".

And for the record, those "profesional" design forums that come up in a google search are complete crap.
They are infested with wannabes who dont wish to discuss, but to gain some form of community status by posting their half arsed attempts using premade brushes and stocks.

To start a quality design forum you need a core group of dedicated members, that arent fussed with how many people are joining, but about the quality of members who are joining, and the quality of the forum in general.
A design forum does not need many boards. A showcase and WIP board, a graphics discussion board, a general discussion board, a tutorial board and announcement board is all thats needed. Anything more is excess and will either breed posts that arent up to quality standards, or will go unused.

People need to distinguish "Graphics Forums" for "Design Forums". Design forums are about discussing design and bettering yours and others skills. Anything more and its a "Graphics Forum".

I'd like to get into designing more, but I tend to prefer other things, and I still use GIMP. I am not interested in using PhotoShop illegally by most people. Design forums are declining. Not that long ago, GFXDrop was being promoted here, and the forum was quite nice, but the Administrator closed it. And just right next to this quick reply box, is the Featured Forums section, Graphic Force is in it, which is Kik's forum, which seems to be in good shape. On ProBoards in general, designers have disappeared. It seems most have went into bigger things. Same for coding as well. I have a friend who is a regular ProBoards coder who is starting their own forum host, and I am friends with two coders who are constructing their own forum softwares. I also know a designer who designed amazing ProBoards themes for a few months, and now he is designing PhpBB3 themes. Smangii is just busy, I am not sure if he does anything designing anymore. There used to be designing forums all over the place on ProBoards, and now there is a few, and they aren't even very good. It seems to be that there is a very large base of users that would really like to see another ProBoards design forum like Slightly Insane. Slightly Insane was amazing, and it still is; it is a huge collection of anything designing-wise you can imagine.

I have only ever seen two good (web) designers on ProBoards, and both of them are now members of encide 😛

Sunjo, who is a massivly overrated designer.
and Rockafella, who is an awesome webdesigner.

Smangii was never good at forum design.

Wrighty is the coder (or one of) that im assuming your talking about. He's a massive clitoris, but knows what he's doing. He's a profesional coder now iirc. Doesnt code for PB now, obviously 😛

And Ive only really seen 2 or 3 people in the PB design community who was good at (graphic) design, all of which are now inactive. Though not from becoming a professional.

But if you place this into perspective, what can you discuss on a design forum which can't be discussed on big blogs?

Have you even read any of the comments on these blogs? Most of the blogs are geared towards learning, rather than discussion. They attract wave after wave of amtuers who have little to offer in the way of engaging discussion. Like I said earlier, "Nice" and "Not nice" are varations thereof are generally the comments on these blogs.

 

[Quacker Jack]

The problem is that design community are not quality driven, but driven by activity.

gForce is an example of this. I wouldnt conisder it a design forum at all, its a "graphics forum". People with an ounce of profesionalism, maturity or skill tend to steer clear of such places.

My favourite design community would have to be Enicide (a forum), followed by DesignersCouch, which is more of a network.
These places are geared towards quality rather than traffic or acitivity. But because they are geared towards quality, they develop activity. Both communities are via invitation only.
I know encide is rutheless in removing threats to the quality of the community, with things like sigs or anime being completly banned.

Blogs arent communities, make no mistake. They are money making machines. The TutPlus network tries to hold a certain quality (wich i feel the bar needs to be raised slightly higher), but it isnt a community.
Read through the comments, your unlikely to find a discussion on techniques or uses, but varations of "Nice" and "I dont like it".

And for the record, those "profesional" design forums that come up in a google search are complete crap.
They are infested with wannabes who dont wish to discuss, but to gain some form of community status by posting their half arsed attempts using premade brushes and stocks.

To start a quality design forum you need a core group of dedicated members, that arent fussed with how many people are joining, but about the quality of members who are joining, and the quality of the forum in general.
A design forum does not need many boards. A showcase and WIP board, a graphics discussion board, a general discussion board, a tutorial board and announcement board is all thats needed. Anything more is excess and will either breed posts that arent up to quality standards, or will go unused.

People need to distinguish "Graphics Forums" for "Design Forums". Design forums are about discussing design and bettering yours and others skills. Anything more and its a "Graphics Forum".

I'd like to get into designing more, but I tend to prefer other things, and I still use GIMP. I am not interested in using PhotoShop illegally by most people. Design forums are declining. Not that long ago, GFXDrop was being promoted here, and the forum was quite nice, but the Administrator closed it. And just right next to this quick reply box, is the Featured Forums section, Graphic Force is in it, which is Kik's forum, which seems to be in good shape. On ProBoards in general, designers have disappeared. It seems most have went into bigger things. Same for coding as well. I have a friend who is a regular ProBoards coder who is starting their own forum host, and I am friends with two coders who are constructing their own forum softwares. I also know a designer who designed amazing ProBoards themes for a few months, and now he is designing PhpBB3 themes. Smangii is just busy, I am not sure if he does anything designing anymore. There used to be designing forums all over the place on ProBoards, and now there is a few, and they aren't even very good. It seems to be that there is a very large base of users that would really like to see another ProBoards design forum like Slightly Insane. Slightly Insane was amazing, and it still is; it is a huge collection of anything designing-wise you can imagine.

I have only ever seen two good (web) designers on ProBoards, and both of them are now members of encide 😛

Sunjo, who is a massivly overrated designer.
and Rockafella, who is an awesome webdesigner.

Smangii was never good at forum design.

Wrighty is the coder (or one of) that im assuming your talking about. He's a massive clitoris, but knows what he's doing. He's a profesional coder now iirc. Doesnt code for PB now, obviously 😛

And Ive only really seen 2 or 3 people in the PB design community who was good at (graphic) design, all of which are now inactive. Though not from becoming a professional.

But if you place this into perspective, what can you discuss on a design forum which can't be discussed on big blogs?

Have you even read any of the comments on these blogs? Most of the blogs are geared towards learning, rather than discussion. They attract wave after wave of amtuers who have little to offer in the way of engaging discussion. Like I said earlier, "Nice" and "Not nice" are varations thereof are generally the comments on these blogs.

Tov, you really just hit about every single mark that I was going to hit.

Tov is correct about literally everything. He is right about the problem where true graphic forums are driven by activity, not quality. Same with the way he feels about blogs. As well as the fact that people really need to leave design vs. graphic.

 

[David]

But if you place this into perspective, what can you discuss on a design forum which can't be discussed on big blogs?

Have you even read any of the comments on these blogs? Most of the blogs are geared towards learning, rather than discussion. They attract wave after wave of amtuers who have little to offer in the way of engaging discussion. Like I said earlier, "Nice" and "Not nice" are varations thereof are generally the comments on these blogs.

Yes I have read comments on those blogs. Note that comments aren't the only form of discussion. The blog post itself is a form of discussion and can ask questions which people can answer. The title itself can pose as a discussion point and people do reply answering or discussion focal points. Take this post on Smashing Magazine. Look at the quality of discussion and depth of some of the replies. They are not just "yes" or "nice" and really, this is the quality of which big blogs can provide whereas a forum may not equally provide. They are not always amateurs, rather I've seen many professionals post and discuss. Even if they are amateurs, they are not just posting "nice" as shown by my example. If you only read blogs with "nice" etc., then you really haven't read a good range of blogs.

 

[Solidus]

I've seen too many graphic design forums close down because of inactivity. I don't know why this keeps happening but it does.



Also you mention how graphics forums are destined to fail. I somewhat agree. There are far too many IPB powered forums of this niche around and they just keep getting created and taken down.

 

[Viper18]

Yeah I know what you mean I was always tring to find a good graphics forum when I can show off my work and stuff but most of them have closed down and I don't really see many starting. In my free time I have been tring to get a small community of people that enjoy graphics and stuff to make a forum. Hopefully it will get bigger some day 🙂

 

[Tovarisch]

But if you place this into perspective, what can you discuss on a design forum which can't be discussed on big blogs?

Have you even read any of the comments on these blogs? Most of the blogs are geared towards learning, rather than discussion. They attract wave after wave of amtuers who have little to offer in the way of engaging discussion. Like I said earlier, "Nice" and "Not nice" are varations thereof are generally the comments on these blogs.

Yes I have read comments on those blogs. Note that comments aren't the only form of discussion. The blog post itself is a form of discussion and can ask questions which people can answer. The title itself can pose as a discussion point and people do reply answering or discussion focal points. Take this post on Smashing Magazine. Look at the quality of discussion and depth of some of the replies. They are not just "yes" or "nice" and really, this is the quality of which big blogs can provide whereas a forum may not equally provide. They are not always amateurs, rather I've seen many professionals post and discuss. Even if they are amateurs, they are not just posting "nice" as shown by my example. If you only read blogs with "nice" etc., then you really haven't read a good range of blogs.

For everyone 1 discussion in a blog, i can give you a hundred useless "discussions". Dont make the mistake of thinking im making wide sweeping generalisations, but real discussions are definetly in the minority.

 

[David]

But if you place this into perspective, what can you discuss on a design forum which can't be discussed on big blogs?

Have you even read any of the comments on these blogs? Most of the blogs are geared towards learning, rather than discussion. They attract wave after wave of amtuers who have little to offer in the way of engaging discussion. Like I said earlier, "Nice" and "Not nice" are varations thereof are generally the comments on these blogs.

Yes I have read comments on those blogs. Note that comments aren't the only form of discussion. The blog post itself is a form of discussion and can ask questions which people can answer. The title itself can pose as a discussion point and people do reply answering or discussion focal points. Take this post on Smashing Magazine. Look at the quality of discussion and depth of some of the replies. They are not just "yes" or "nice" and really, this is the quality of which big blogs can provide whereas a forum may not equally provide. They are not always amateurs, rather I've seen many professionals post and discuss. Even if they are amateurs, they are not just posting "nice" as shown by my example. If you only read blogs with "nice" etc., then you really haven't read a good range of blogs.

For everyone 1 discussion in a blog, i can give you a hundred useless "discussions". Dont make the mistake of thinking im making wide sweeping generalisations, but real discussions are definetly in the minority.

That's where your logic fails. You quoted this: "But if you place this into perspective, what can you discuss on a design forum which can't be discussed on big blogs?" from my post. I mentioned big blogs and the "a hundred useless "discussions"" you mentioned are clearly not from "big blogs" (unless you can name one which is well recognized and has a question focal point), so you haven't really made a point, merely supported what I said.

 

[Tovarisch]

Tuts+, nuff said.

I can STILL find more crap discussions on "big blogs" than you can find good ones.

My statement stands.

 

[David]

Tuts+, nuff said.

I can STILL find more crap discussions on "big blogs" than you can find good ones.

My statement stands.

I never said your statement didn't stand, but note that you haven't provided a sufficient example. TutsPlus network are tutorials, which do not naturally generate discussion as they are not up for discussion. I asked for a "well recognized and has a question focal point" blog. Anyway, just by looking at a few PsdTuts+ posts, there are still people posting reasonably long replies and there are people posting short replies. It's the same with any forum.

Even if you can find more "crap discussions" than good ones, you've just again supported my statement that good discussion can be found on blogs which are equally as good as forums, eg. my Smashing Mag example. Even if there are a billion blogs providing "crap discussions", so long as there is one, "My statement stands."

 

[Tovarisch]

Oh, so your point is that blogs CAN have good discussions. And that at least one did have one.

I dont see blogs replacing forums at all. Like I said, networks such as DesignersCouch are the future for the community. Not blogs, though they arent going anywhere.

If you really want to get down to the comparisons of forums and blogs, a blog post is essentially a thread. But it has several short comings that a network doesnt, such as a sense of community and unity.
Not to mention feed back and critique on your work to grow each member of a network as an artist/designer.
Design collectives are a good example, their essentially the forerunner of the design network.

 

[David]

Yes, I said that discussion on forums can be equally as good as on blogs, eg. my example. Blogs won't replace forums generally, but for design, it's a touchy subject like my example. I affirmed previously that a blog post is a thread, but there are things called community blogs where say on Wordpress, you can install BuddyPress which is the community adjointed feature of Wordpress. However, if there is good discussion on big blogs then you know that they are the kind of designers you want to fit in with as they are generally good designers knowing what they are talking about.

 

[Tovarisch]

I admit my blog usage is limited, and i've rarely come accross one with worthwhile discussion. I see you run one, which looks pretty decent, so they arent all bad 😛

My experience has just conditioned me to think a certain way. My blog exeperience has generally been a bad one. Well, not bad, more not worth while.