Site Planning

[Webmaren]

I think it's important to not rush too quickly into developing a skin for the rebirth of Shadow Designs. We should be considering this as a holistic effort, not just about visual appearance but about the content, about the culture, about what we want this place to be and what we don't want this place to be.

We need a conversation on why all of the old graphics forums failed. We need a conversation on why the forum community seems to have gotten weaker than it was years ago.

We need a conversation on how we can beat those realities, how we can deliver the experience that people have been looking for since those days.

[Webmaren]

We have 28 boards (not including sub-boards) on this forum right now, and that is probably quite overwhelming to new users, especially considering that the general chat board is buried in the middle of the stack.

I propose streamlining down to these 11 boards viewable from the front page, with sub-boards as appropriate. Names are of course flexible, though I think we should try to find a consistent theme for all of them before we jump into the thick of things.

Information:

• Announcements
  • Suggestions
    
  
  
• Staff
  

Community:

• General Chat
  
• Graphics Studio
  
• Coding Studio
  

Showcase:

• Works in Progress
  
• Gallery
  
• Symposium (tutorials et al)
  

Library:

• Graphics Resources
  
• Coding Resources
  
• Proboards Skins
  

[BossAlien]

Am fine with that but what about the likes of

-Classification
-Team Area
-Premium Resources
-Market Place

tbh I don't think its the amount of boards you have, its weather members will post in them. As since all of them are related to graphics anyways which is what this forum is about.

I can see some of the boards can go but if we get rid of the majority of the boards, wont the forum look "bare"?
As in we wouldnt look as if we would offer more?

[Webmaren]

I would say that some of those can be placed as sub-boards. As far as resources are concerned, I would propose locking the entire Library category to members-only, but making the tutorials section public.

I think developing Teams within SD is something we should hold off on at this time. It's a bit much to take on right at the beginning.

As for the theory that fewer boards make the forum look bare, I rather think it is the opposite. What makes it look bare is when a board has no posts, or the most recent post is months or years old. Members are more likely to post when it looks like there is a lot of activity, and that means that for every board on the forum, we need a lot of posts flowing in.

People will be active members for the community, not for any resources we might provide. That should be our focus in selling the site to prospective users.

[BossAlien]

cool then I will get to work on the boards

next step the colour scheme? Template & Codes?

[-sĐ.Ѵisionδ]

I am for the idea to get rid of the other inactive boards......too many boards we dont need them not this early on.

We could hide some of the boards if need be right? Maybe Cobra could make them no viewable at all so they dont appear for members, staff and guests.
That way when we become more active and popular, we can bring them boards back

[Webmaren]

Working on this for the skin in the meantime. Thinking about a light version and dark version, since a lot of people prefer one or the other.

I think it would be good to take down the other skins when we put this one up, as an indicator of our clean break with the past.

Attachments:

[BossAlien]

Looks really good mate
cant wait for the finished version.
When would this be done by?

[Christian Hjortshøj [busy]]

I agree with the amount of boards. I can help with anything - and set up payment services if necessary (excuse my spelling - this is a quick reply, lol).

I study marketing and such, perhaps I could stand for some lauching as viral marketing is a favourite of mine!

I have given Cobra some ideas of what I have in mind - but first of all:

We should really have a plan of who is doing what!!

[BossAlien]

I have edited/moved the boards around to cut them down.

Webmaren is designing a temporally layout as shown in the posts above

So Christian can design a website/splash page? Or design some new codes as we talked about like integrating social networking sites into the forum?

[Webmaren]

I think we need to have a solid plan of what the new look and feel of the forum is going to be before we start thinking about details like social networking integration and such. We need to identify our target members, we need to figure out what things they are looking for in the forum, and we need to find a way to provide those things.

[BossAlien]

Nov 29, 2011 17:04:30 GMT Webmaren said:

I think we need to have a solid plan of what the new look and feel of the forum is going to be before we start thinking about details like social networking integration and such. We need to identify our target members, we need to figure out what things they are looking for in the forum, and we need to find a way to provide those things.

Since last time we were active on sD back in 2008 we had mainly designers who joined and we made a Magazine, Website, we had plans for Premium packages and affiliating with other big graphic sites.

Now in this day and age a lot has changed and many designers have grown into web designing and such so I think we have to look out of the box here and bigger and better. A big handful of members are not around as much as they used to (in fact am lucky to have got you guys back) so the way we design and plan our ideas have to be accurate and cleaver. Our designs and ideas have to top that of what we did design and create back all those years ago.

It all depends on how much you guys can create and design and get inspiration from, for me I am useless in this area as I can not design nor code so I wouldn't be of any help. But I know my way around graphics and coding just don't know how to design or how they are made.

The current template was huge back in 2008 but its out ran its course and just needs to be lifted with some new hint of colours and a light theme as we all talked about. The idea which you have Web is really good and I cant wait for the final outcome as I think its the best way to go about a look that will catch some peoples eyes. The current doom and gloom colours of this template just puts me off so I assume its the same for everyone. Once we get the skin on we can work our way around the other features and codes we can add.

The coding needs updating big time, I think a new

-New Affiliate table
-New integrated info center
-New Profiles for members and staff
-A nice table at the top of the main page to display perhaps SOTW winners or signatures etc.
-Integrated Social networking features (Twitter, Facebook etc)
-Perhaps a new Index of pre-made images/codes?

Design wise

-New template
-New home icons
-New affiliate button
-New similes and posting icons
-Splash page (with sD Twitter, facebook, website links)
-New Website/Homepage to showcase our premium packages, advertisement packages, perhaps resources too.


Those are just some ideas we can work with till we know what the template is going to look like

[Christian Hjortshøj [busy]]

Nov 29, 2011 17:04:30 GMT Webmaren said:

I think we need to have a solid plan of what the new look and feel of the forum is going to be before we start thinking about details like social networking integration and such. We need to identify our target members, we need to figure out what things they are looking for in the forum, and we need to find a way to provide those things.

Hmm, yea. I suppose you're right. I just follow my bitchy marketing-streategies from school. Lol.

But most really viral launches have been via social media. We have to follow the strategy:

1. Announce
2. Make mysterious
3. Create the design&functions
4. Announce and get betatesters
5. launch

Just my opinion, but I know this way works.

[Webmaren]

I definitely agree that we need a nice marketing effort to go with this launch. It's probably our best bet for getting enough members to get this thing going.

I am working on the in-the-meantime skin here: sd10skin.proboards.com

[BossAlien]

That is a great marketing-streategy Jin Oh nice one

Also just looked at Sam's test board and so far looks really good, I can see we can work from a few things that can be added later but nice work Sam.

Thanks guys for this

[Christian Hjortshøj [busy]]

Looks pretty awesome! Looking forward.

I can do the market analysis and marketing plan (incl. strategy) and then lecture it?

[BossAlien]

Dec 2, 2011 9:44:54 GMT Christian Hjortshøj [busy] said:

Looks pretty awesome! Looking forward.

I can do the market analysis and marketing plan (incl. strategy) and then lecture it?

Awesome least we are getting something going
I have been trying to recuit and have had some new members joined up

[Christian Hjortshøj [busy]]

Here
Our new Social Media profiles for the marketing. I'll start a campaign after Christmas.

twitter.com/#!/ShadowDesignsOF

www.facebook.com/pages/Shadow-Designs/240204936049440?v=wall

You can announce. If you've got the SD icon in a larger scale, I'd like it.