The State if the PB Design Community

[tovarisch]

The ProBoards design community was once the largest community existing on ProBoards, with a large network of graphic forums. This is not the case any longer.

The big design forums have all but died out.
Slightly Insane was basically put to sleep not that long ago, with the admin leaving the forum.
StudioZero was once a big player in the design community, but is now a ghost of its formerself. Very little design discussion goes on at all.
As for ProVision, that has been dying a slow death for a while now. It's very inactive.

With the three biggest graphic forums pretty much dead, and nothing to take their place, the design community has been rapidly shrinking. All thats left, their legacy, is a labrinth of premade skins and codes.
It has become increasingly hard for forum administrators to find PB forum designers to make a custom skin, and even hard still to find a good one.

There have been numerous promising design forums to open, but they all lasted 6 months at the most, before they died for one reason or another.

Is there no longer an intresting in forum design? Is there no longer designers, or people looking to become one?
And where is the next big design forum? When will it come?

What will save the PB design community?

[Will]

New people making (good) creative forums. A lot of the same designs have been used over and over again.

And the main reason I believe most of the good sites are dying out is because the people who ran them are getting older. Smangii is in college now, and had little time for SI. Also, the guys who ran sites like G101, DX5, F5, and other sites that were buzzing around '05 and before are now in their 20's, and have better stuff to do than design stuff for Proboards.

If more new people decided to design something decent rather than roleplay as wolves and stuff, the design comm. would be better off.

my two cents.

[Anselm]

I was thinking the same recently, it seems that all the designers have moved on, possibly with age and life, possibly to better pastures (freelancing etc).

But the decline of design forums started, I think, with Zanmato Designs a few years ago, that spread to F5, to G101, to some of the newer thriving ones (I'm thinking DX5, eD) then to SSD (and that was a big moment when it shut), spread here and then to SI and Studio Zero most recently. I'm not sure it's replicated all over the internet, in fact it isn't, but on PB it's certainly a very interesting phenomenon.

Looking at it, which designers are here? Other than the mods, I can't really name any frequents. The old designers, I'm talking noob/dk/crazy/jongos, wow this brings back memories, are all long gone. I remember when this board was thriving. It thrived again, we had a new set of designers, some of those old ones plus ica, shawn, dude - they've gone too. I don't know why they've gone, perhaps it's just the general decline of GDD here.

But it is certainly disappointing, and I just think it's that designers have by and large moved on. It's mostly age - as Will said it's the teens in 2005 that would be in their 20s now and into the real world - and they dominated the design boards back then. I'm only 18 now, I was only 14 when I was modded, I've always been the younger one here (and never that great anyway ) I would love to see more come up, or for them to come back, and in all honesty I do what I can here, but there's very little I can do

[dude]

Jul 10, 2010 2:02:26 GMT -8 Anselm said:

I remember when this board was thriving. It thrived again, we had a new set of designers, some of those old ones plus ica, shawn, dude - they've gone too. I don't know why they've gone, perhaps it's just the general decline of GDD here.

Oi.

[Anselm]

Jul 10, 2010 2:42:06 GMT -8 dude said:

Jul 10, 2010 2:02:26 GMT -8 Anselm said:

I remember when this board was thriving. It thrived again, we had a new set of designers, some of those old ones plus ica, shawn, dude - they've gone too. I don't know why they've gone, perhaps it's just the general decline of GDD here.

Oi.

I take that back, you're still around. Sometimes. Not as much as you were

[xcessive]

Its pretty hard to miss the fact that the rise of the RP boards on proboards almost directly coincides with the fall of the major graphics forums. Its seem to me like a "meme" type situation. One person makes a hugely successful forum, there are many forums produced in the same vein until most of that 'generation' of PBers move on. Thence, the cycle continues while the stragglers sit around on empty relics of boards and talk about the "old days".

Personally, I think graphic design is a much better creative outlet then RPing and I hope that one day the design meme will fire up again. I still think the PB design community can turn around and regenerate itself. All it would take is one outrageously successful forum to draw in a whole bunch of people and capture PBers interest.

[Kami]

To add, there are some people who are trying. =P i mean, i wasn't quite a part of GDD during its heyday, but I do remember a lot of the bigger design forums / 'veterans' of GDD. I was able to get a lot of critique and advice as a starting artist, and I think I've improved greatly for it.

That said ... I do think that I was a rather unique case at the time. >_>;; I joined a few of the big design forums, and so many of them already had their established 'elite' artists that it was very hard for a newbie to get anything out of them. Everyone was classified into two groups - design gods, or noobs. The noobs got no help from anyone; even with the advice given to me here, a lot of it was made with the expectation i knew exactly what they were talking about.

this really is unhelpful to new designers, and quite frankly a huge deterrent for anyone new to design. if i knew exactly what was being talked about, chances are that you wouldn't have had to critique me on the lack of it.

i attribute a lot of the 'decline' of GDD / Design to this sort of attitude. I think if I hadn't shown persistence in bugging the people who gave the sort of 'good colouring, needs improvement on flow & depth, try some c4ds' critique to actually properly explain themselves, i would've given up on designing eons ago.

[xcessive]

Thats a good point Kami, an entry level forum dedicated to giving critiques only would be a useful, but probably likely to die quit quickly.

[Kami]

Jul 10, 2010 3:36:48 GMT -8 xcessive said:

Thats a good point Kami, an entry level forum dedicated to giving critiques only would be a useful, but probably likely to die quit quickly.

that's not quite what i mean. i mean if the bigger forums, with the more 'experienced' designers were more open to giving a good critique (bearing in mind that new designers are likely to be clueless as to what stuff like 'flow' and 'depth' are), they would've, in all likelihood, not fallen by the wayside.

what's needed is new blood -- but what was expected is that this 'new blood' would come into skill and experience all on their own, with minimal help from people they ought to have tried to emulate.

so, instead, we've got no-one replacing the old veterans as they move off of forums, and we have these focal-less, depth-less, flow-less boring 'designs' getting spread around as 'good' graphics because no one has learned anything from their betters.

[xcessive]

Ok well, I agree with you. People are weirdly jealous when it comes to hard earned design knowledge. I was lucky enough to have access to a really helpful crowd of people when I started. I guess thats what I was saying, there needs to be a trend setter, a group of people willing to share and give unanimously.

[Kami]

Jul 10, 2010 3:53:17 GMT -8 xcessive said:

Ok well, I agree with you. People are weirdly jealous when it comes to hard earned design knowledge. I was lucky enough to have access to a really helpful crowd of people when I started. I guess thats what I was saying, there needs to be a trend setter, a group of people willing to share and give unanimously.

i tried. =P people generally go inactive. at least, the 'veterans' do. i can't keep up all by myself, haha.

it would be helpful; but how many of the 'good' designers (at least of the PB community) have time now? i don't consider myself to be in that bracket, but even though i'm aspiring to be one, i don't have time -and have less time as i get older and get more responsibilities- to be able to do so. as it is, whilst i'm still trying to improve my skills, i don't have the time to sit there and guide someone through the process.

plus, i'm a little discouraged. =P the one person i actually took the time out for pretty much ignored everything i said, and is still making poopy graphics. =/

[xcessive]

Its a two way problem, you have to have people willing to give and people willing to listen.

[tovarisch]

What is left of the design community needs to band together.

[Kami]

Jul 10, 2010 4:00:40 GMT -8 xcessive said:

Its a two way problem, you have to have people willing to give and people willing to listen.

two way street, mebbe? and it's not just that. i'm perfectly willing to give and to help. whether or not i'm available to do so is entirely dependent on RL issues (such as my health, internet access, etc).

Jul 10, 2010 4:01:33 GMT -8 tovarisch said:

What is left of the design community needs to band together.

yes and no. it'd be nice, but completely useless if the people that are left don't share their knowledge and expertise.

[xcessive]

I think "share" was what he meant when he said band together. At least that was my interpretation.