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Design

Reuben Varzea
Reuben Varzea
23,182 Points

Best forum for design critiques?

Hey folks - so I'm planning on making a heavy push to improve my design skills over the coming weeks/months. One thing that I know is a big piece is critiquing, and while self-critiquing is important, its obviously easy to get caught up in your own work at times. Is there a good avenue for getting critiques on designs that anyone is particularly fond of? A web group or forum perhaps? Or maybe even something within the Treehouse community that allows students going through the design courses to critique each others work?

(This potentially is answered somewhere in the design courses, but I'm only half way through and may not have noticed it.)

Thanks!

3 Answers

You might try Dribbble, Forrst or reddit.

James Barnett
James Barnett
39,199 Points

Dribble is ...

  • better suited for small print-ish design e.g. logos, lettering, type design.
  • invite-only to post work.
  • kinda like twitter, it's very short so don't expect a real critique.

The most important point, don't post screenshots for design critiques, if you are designing websites and not flyers people should evaluate them as a website.

That's true but there are plenty of tags for web design. It's just not a very good way initially to allow people to interact with your website. The screenshot can provide a good start for the critique but you can also add a link to the website. I don't think it's really all that hard to get an invite.

James Barnett
James Barnett
39,199 Points

Also you can't post to Forrst anymore

"We've decided it was time for a change. With that, we're announcing today that we'll be shutting down the ability to create new posts on Forrst on April 14."

source: https://forrst.com/posts/The_Forrst_is_Growing_Into_Something_New-3im

Hmm, I was aware that they were purchased by zurb, however, I didn't know they disabled posts until they release details on how the new Forrst will work. I'm actually a member there but I didn't use it all that much. It is interesting that they have plans for it to be a learning community.

I found when I was there I wasn't getting critiques from people who were really qualified to provide that. For myself that's an important aspect for receiving feedback on something. Perhaps design and UX go hand in hand, and of course then you have trends. I think it's a matter of practice and interaction and finding out what is the most usable and visually aesthetic. I also think sometimes people make it more complex than it needs to be. I can most times spend about 5 or 10 minutes to see how usable and visually pleasing a website is; but that's just my opinion.

The official acquisition statement sounds promising for a revamped design critique platform.

Reuben Varzea
Reuben Varzea
23,182 Points

Will check out Dribble for sure. Even help with logo critiquing won't hurt - looking for general critique, really. "Wow, that's awful." "Those colors don't work." "The layout is too cramped." "You should go back to dog walking." That sort of thing.

Reuben Varzea
Reuben Varzea
23,182 Points

And obviously if anyone knows the best way to GET an invite, lemme know. :) Wouldn't be looking to post anything for a few weeks anyway.