How to make my forum thematic.

[Enchant]

Your sitting there in front of your computer and looking at a default forum wondering, Where do you start? There has been discussions on the creating of a forum, from 'What to name it?' to 'Should I customize it?'. But once you have a name and a topic, what do you do then? This is where one of my favorite sayings here on Proboards comes in..."You need to make it thematic to your topic". This point is key in customizing.

I get alot of people saying," that they are not creative, they have no imagination"...Hog Wash...they have it and just don't know it or don't want to be bothered with it. So this thread is to give those some tips on how to utilize those creative juices.

When I try to come up with a theme, I usually try to step outside the norm, think outside the box. I am going to use Harry Potter Forums as an example, because most people can understand the content of it. A majority of Harry Potter forums look the same. The Hogwarts castle, the house crest and the occasional facial images....it has been done so much, that when looking at a HP forum, it gives potential members the feeling of been there, done that...my suggestion ...think outside the box.

Think of all the Harry Potter movies and book scenes and think of that one particular scene you absolutely liked. Make a snap shot of it in your head. Got it? Good. Then you have everything you need to make a theme for your forum. For discussion , I am going to say, I liked the part with the Womping willow and the werewolf in PoA. Alright, I have an idea of what I want. I will start with the banner....The Banner is a very important part of the overall look as it is a major focus on a forum. I would perhaps have the Womping willow put on it, with its limbs partical wrapped around a dark background to give the feeling of night ..perhaps a few small creatures, like a bat and perhaps and a couple of tiny spiders...and perhaps some glowing red eyes in the hole of it...with the a nice text effect....see what I am doing? I am giving the feel of a mysterious feel to it and yet remaining thematic to Harry Potter...and its not something that has been overused. Same principles should be used for all your graphics.

For the background of your forum, I would use a night field with a large glowing moon in a black night sky shining above it.Perhaps the image with a Womping willow in it. From this point on any other graphics needed for this theme can be pulled from your banner and background. Keep the images, color and styles together...


As for your content, I see a very simular problem, been there and done that. Although, the board titles are pretty much universal. I can go through the GOAYB and pick the first five HP forums and I can guarantee you that there board content will pretty much be all the exact same. My Suggestion is to be unique and creative. Instead of have a General Board, why not make it a Room Of Requirement. Instead of traditional common boards give them some character...Why try using the chapter titles of the books or the scene title of the movies as a guide. For example, instead of "Divination" Why not have "Talons and Tea Leaves"just using it as an example.

Also when using a theme on your forum, don't forget the little things like the ranks and buttons as well...even the smallest image can bring alot to the forum.

I am sure there are more suggestions that can be mentioned, so I will pause for now and let others add there advice or share there experiences..

[Dr Evil]

wow i always thought that i just wasnt good enough to do my own forum, thanks enchant because now i am going to give it a go and not use premade templates. that way i can take all credit for the skin. i supose that you need some skill but imagionation is the key

edit:

i have just made this for it

http://i56./g174/timmaster6/hogwartsexpress.jpg

[GEO]

My thing has always been to make sure that every image has something to do with my theme. This could be the gradients, on/off images, head/base images, etc. I want people to know exactly what they're getting when they come onto my board.

[Raven]

Theming your forum if one of the most important aspects that must be done.
It not only gives your forum a unique feel and look to it, but it at least makes people think there will be something different or better about your forum. This includes url address and board names. I always like naming boards something original, just gives it more depth and my name was not used by any other forum. Thus it interested people and they liked the name, despite my url...>_>
Colors and images are involved in theming a board as well. Use colors that are associated with your theme, such as if you have a terminator forum, don't use pink and yellow, you would want to use blacks, silvers, greys, blues, and reds. Code your forum so that it looks different than other forums and provide members with good and daily content. This is so important and it's good to have a themed board. It'll bring more of the topic to the forum.

[mrsyukisohma]

You made a strong point about picking a particular theme from a popular book or movie such as Harry Potter. When it comes to forums like RPG boards based off Harry Potter or Fruits Basket (Furuba is very popular in RPG message boards, but not often shown here) a lot of the fans tend to pick the same theme. Fruits Basket is reaching it's end in Japanese, and a lot of people are caught up with it, and tend to start it there. But if you notice there are plenty of people caught up with the English version that don't go by the Japanese release. This is one of the reasons why many of the RPG boards struggle.

I got tired of seeing the same old Furuba RPG board's. On my board you have the option to role-play Fruits Basket, but I decided to add other anime and manga to RP to hopefully solve this problem.

A lot of people who like Harry Potter tend to stick to that theme. It might help to come up with a different storyline or add a new one like Pirates of the Carribean or Lord of the Rings because there also very popular. It gives you a little more of a variety.

[kaylee2000]

What I did was make a nice splash page. It intrigues the vistor to enter your forum and if you make it interesting enough and maybe add a little cliffhanger to it.

Razr had this on one of his splash pages so thanks to him...

"You're all going to die. The only thing for you to decide is how you check out."

I think a good phrase on a splash page may really do the trick but don't forget to follow up in the rest of your forum!

[Nicholasa]

When I'm thinking of a theme for something the first thing I do is settle into something I learnt at college - the design process (can't you tell I'm a multimedia student).

So... say I was doing a board themed on horses. The first thing I would do is write down everything that's to do with horses. These are the keythemes. Then I would go onto to use the keythemes to create word association games, as well as other lateral thinking exercises.

Once I had a long list of word associations, mind maps etc I would then think: what out of these ideas would make a good horse forum look good, different and still have something to do with horses?

Once I'd done that I'd start to draw out a few design ideas. Once I had found one I liked then I would start to create the forum images and colour scheme itself keeping to the design idea and keeping it themeatic.

[kelendria]

I based my theme on my music group (not everything was customized to death, mind)
But now I use base colours, experiment & look generally at what goes together.
I've made some horrible skins in the past but getting people's opinions can also help.
I've had people warn against using base colours like white, black & grey but it's surprising how much you can build on them.
My Banner used to always match the skin colour but since having deleted my board, they're now mostly the same!

[leah]

I agree with the people here, your board must be thematic. The thing that I usually do is base my color scheme and my boards off of my theme. Of course you would base your boards off of your theme. If it's a roleplaying board, and you don't have any boards to roleplay in, that would be just plain stupid. But it has happened, so you should definitely make most of your boards thematic. A few off-topic boards are fine, of course, most every board needs them. But it's good not to go too off-topic.

I also try to make my design related to the theme. My newest board is a roleplaying board, and it's set in the Midwest, Minnesota, to be exact. My color scheme is mostly green, which goes with the large amount of nature that is visible there. Now, I could have also done blue, because of the lakes, but I chose one. My background is a type of grass, which also fits. You just have to make everything fit, and it will just look better. For some reason, if a board's color scheme has nothing to do with the theme, it turns me away.

[rivenriver]

I like what you're saying, and I agree, it's so important to be original. (Unfortunatly, even if you re, it takes a long time for anyone to notice!!!)

I do want to say though, I hate rpg borads that use unusual names rather than literal. It makes everything so much more complicated to navigate. I preffer things simple and said plainly, so that I know what I'm going to get when I click on that link. It's creative, sure, but it does seem a bit like overkill to me.

[kelendria]

For the themes of my board, I like to think I'm pretty much unique.
I name my boards after rooms & such, & the banner & background are usually significant.
As for content, I know alot of 'themed' forums don't have lyrics & reviews, album credits & such, but from the start I wanted to make my different (as there alot of boards on my 'theme')
I find now the forum has had to become more general because the subjects of my forum have since disbanded, but I still like to have something different from other music & general boards out there.

[lordparadise]

Our board's theme sort of created itself.

We started off with only a handful of boards and a few skin. But, our most important step was the creation of a "Hall of Fame" that forever recorded all of the greatest inside jokes from every months. Since then, we've just continued to build on whatever had become immortalized by the Hall of Fame, and now we have our own sort of mythology that every new member quickly becomes versed in.

[smexie]

I've found the most vital piece of advice given to me in keeping thematic is: The smallest things can make the biggest difference. Thnigs like rank names, board names, smilies, banners etc can make a huge difference in whether you baord stands out and stays thematic or stands out in all the wrong ways.

[Gamoc]

Wow, this was made a long time ago.

Well, I think that thinking outside of the box is a good thing, but I would first observe some others to see how you should act in one, not neccessarily copy them, but get a basic idea on it. Then start coming up with it. On my forum, I didn't just name it Pokemon RPG, I named it after a pokemon to have some thematic effect. I have found that to be very nice, where as other people just name their pokemon:

The Best Pokemon RPG
Pokemon some made up region

I really thought that making it around my favorite type of pokemon and starting there hurt.

[Thing-Thing]

Well, my forum name means "Diarreah" in Norwegian slang Considering it's a clone of a game-based forum, though the name attracts lots of people, but a DO NOT is to name your board after yourself, there was this guy who called himself "destroyer v2.0", guess what his forum name was, and how many membes he got? But finding a theme for diarreah? NOT simple