Open-Designs
 

Hello all, wanting either a review or some suggestions on how to improve my site :)

It's a graphic design website (mainly for signatures, banners, large arts, etc. but open to all types of artwork), having tutorials, showoffs, etc. for new or experienced graphic designers to help everyone learn.

Some forums are open but most are hidden to guests, you can view them & acess all features by logging into the test account:
Account: Test
Password: Test1


Any feedback would be great :)

http://www.open-designs.org

Thanks, anyone else?

The homepage looks a little php-nuke ish which I've never been a big fan of, but the forum itself looks good, nice color and a clean theme. Maybe look for a subforum mod such as https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=177954 so the list doesn't go forever. On the home page maybe try aligning the type left instead of centering it in the middle area. Also because of the bigger left column and the images in the center (like the itunes card) it makes the type feel off center to me. Also, redo the poll images (bars), the stock ones are too chunky and colorful for your theme.

At a glance (viewing the forum style) it's one of those styles and layouts you tend to see with those free hosted structures. I not at all keen on the style firstly because it is way too dark and images applied pave the way for inconsistency. The forum status icons look a little crammed and why use a lastpost icon for the forum_link (that does not follow the same design as the other forum status icons)?

With regards to the lastpost areas and the amount of forums you use I would also set about in aligning them so they are the same width. Each lastpost area in each catergory is a different width which throws any kind of uniformed alignment out of the window.

Nothing much to say about the style. It's dark, and way too much black used throughout the style and icons. Break the style out a little by implementing colour into the icons, button sets etc... Why not implement some blue (like you did with the logo) and inject some colour into the icons?

Overall, Just another style that doesn't offer anything different both in design and a structure layout. Goodluck regardless.

The style is exactly how 100% of the people on the board wanted it. Dark/Black colors bring out graphic design works the best when people post them. It draws all attention to those which is the main point of having the darkness.

In response to the column widths on the main page that was due to someone putting pictures in their poll and it ending up on the newest poll, it extended the width of the entire column heh, was against the rules to do so so that's fixed.. the column really isn't that big which makes the middle look fine imo.