what do you look for...

[ritual]

in a design forum?

for me, i look for a forum with;

nice layout: it's going to be challenge for me to frequently browse/post on a forum that is hard to look at.

community: i don't need a place that has thousands and thousands of members. i don't think it matters if a forum only has 100 members, assuming a good amount of them are active. oh, and they have to be friendly too!

showoff: just about every design forum has a place where you can post your latest creation, but i figured it was also worth posting. for me, this is something that really motivates me to design. i love posting my work and getting feedback on it.

competition: i'm a very competitive person and i love designing, so it's not much of a surprise that i love taking part in things like sotw, battles, etc !

resources: i always think it's nice when a place does requests and has resources for those that can't design themselves.

hmm, that's all i can think of right now !

what do you guys look for?

[Reverse Blade]

Design is probably 90% of it for me. If the design is good I'll just about join the forum right away. If I stay or not is really dependent on the community.

[Ajay]

Tbh, a forum should not be judged the way it's designed. The people on the forum can be really friendly, but still not have a great design. As a designer I can tell you, you can't please everyone with a design. There's always going to be some haters.

[Cam]

I look for a design forum with a small group of people that get along well and are committed to running a successful forum. I don't like design forums with drama. That's my biggest pet peeve. The first thing I see is the design. If the design is absolutely awful, sometimes I will join and try my best to help out, but that depends on the community. If this person literally just copied ideas whether it's topics or board descriptions from another design forum, I generally stay away. I think of it this way: The design is what attracts the eyes and gets the potential member to take a look around the forum. The community and its contents (resources for example) is what gets them to join. How consistent it is with the activity is what gets them to stay.

[[Anthony]]

Sept 8, 2012 20:04:07 GMT -5 Cam said:

I look for a design forum with a small group of people that get along well and are committed to running a successful forum. I don't like design forums with drama. That's my biggest pet peeve.

I've been on forums like that. A lot, actually. SSD was like that. Another forum I frequented about a year ago (GFX Void) was like that and I actually found myself in a situation with a former moderator. Apparently, he didn't like how I used a video game concept art image in my signature that I posted a tutorial. I argued that I paid for the image on a stock website. He started harassing me about it both in PM and inside the thread. The admins banned him for it. Unfortunately, the bad blood caused no one to test out the tutorial and the thread died. I stopped being too active after that because someone always had a beef with someone at that forum and I was sick of it.

[Deleted]

I'm obnoxiously picky about design forums. The layout is the most important aspect for me—on any board. Things like padding, clashing font choices, bad color schemes and generally sloppy or lazy design throw me off immediately. The worst part is that the older I get, the more specific I become.

If the layout's acceptable, I don't really care about much else. Activity, of course, is a deciding factor, but that's very rarely an issue. I like being able to post my resources, but if that option isn't available, oh well! Drama doesn't bother me much, either. I put up with it in real life from the people around me, so I've learned to ignore it almost entirely, and since I've never had anyone get on my case, there's no worry.

[taz]

I look for a nice layout and awesome graphics. Also, I like to see that their forums are very easy to reply to.

[theanswer]

I'm not too picky on the aesthetic design as most people are. The user interface design however, has to be decent. This includes sufficient white space, simple and clear navigation, and colors that are easy on the eyes. I prefer forums with bigger fonts but I can live with smaller ones(such as the majority of forums).

On the other hand, I am rather choosy when it comes to the community. I want to be a part of an active community that shares a common interest with myself. The member count does not concern me, only the ACTIVE members . The more the better as long as it's not some ridiculous number like 100,000 active members.

Other aspects such as how the staff team runs things also affect my decision too but as long as they are not abusive and the community is great then I not too fussed.

Admittedly, if the design is off the way beautiful, I'll register without even bothering checking out the community.

[Flux]

Mainly the design of it. If I go to a graphics design forum and I see a poor theme/banner/graphic work I hit the X straight away.