Signatures are great and all... but...

One sentence summary: Less signatures, more other stuff.

Here's the full version:

Hey guys,
so I came on this site years ago... i think 2009? (Yeah... I just checked) Way back then things were a little different. We pretty much all knew each other and everyone commented on everyone else's stuff... and all our work was significantly worse than what we post now... But since then everything has gone to signatures. It's like the only thing I ever see on here, and it's not like this forum wasn't ever signature focused, even way back when (i feel old), but now there's no variety.

Is it too clichéd to urge everyone to try something other than signatures, something other than manipulations and photoshop effects? Maybe post more about favorite artists and stuff. Honestly, I'm not on here often enough to request this of other people, but I think it would be great if this forum expanded a little. I always say I'll try to be on much more often, but this time i really will try to post more stuff.

Signatures are great for getting a strong understanding of Photoshop and Adobe in general. I can honestly say i gained the majority of my understanding of photoshop by dicking around and making (horrible) signatures (god they were so bad...). That started in maybe 8th grade. Since then i've moved on to so much more, but when I go on here i see so many people who are just sticking to what they know. Maybe y'all don't really have aspirations to become a graphic designer or something along those lines, and challenging yourself may be useless, but why not? Try something new! Something bigger, something less constrained! Start with an 8.5"x11" page instead of a 250PX x 500PX canvas. The new things you create may look worse than what you're used to creating, but everything has to start somewhere.

Try it! Just one!

If you post something other than a tag it's either ignored or shot down in some way. I would say many of us do other things, went to college/uni to study the subject, or even have a job in the industry, but signatures are the best way to relax your graphic hand after a long week of doing other boring shit. Plus they're one of the few pieces in the design world that you can comment constructively on, things like Logos, letterheads, cards etc... tend to be from the artists perspective.
They are also mostly reserved to commercial/private situations so it's probably not in the best light to go about posting them on forums.

Besides this place is mostly dead, it's difficult enough to get a decent comment on a tag let alone anything else.

that's kinda what i'm talking about though... the fact that there's a ton of posting but no replies... and i mean i'm just kinda sad that all i ever see on here is signatures... Maybe i should ask for more commenting instead of new materials? idk... the way the void is now just makes me sad :(

It's sucky isn't it =[ There's still an influx of new members popping up constantly, but nothing to really tempt them to stay..

also... so many new members, so little input from them!! Why???

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gr4ph1kP4ND4

also... so many new members, so little input from them!! Why???

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I still haven't worked that one out. I put it down to nobody replying to their intro thread, or them seeing little to no members online or something.

that and maybe it's just like a vicious circle. No new members post, so no one else posts because they don't see anyone posting which means no new members will post... wtf...

I am making larger pieces. The lack of products from me though comes from the fact that I am just starting digital painting. Ill be posting my current piece soon since it is atleast decent enough to post. I comment on some threads but it seems like I am just going to be repeating myself most of the time or I really just have nothing to say.

... i made graph a gift once.... she never even noticed... :-((



http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/2022/graphpanda.png



XL

AWW BB I'm sorry!! you gotta message me when i'm on a dry spell for me to notice <3

it's now in my signature

I hear it.

I might do something about this soon.

big smile here!!

XL

When I ever post anything it gets ignored. I don't think my stuff is that bad xD

Making signatures is just a hobby to me and nothing more. Sorry if I contributed to a problem of only signatures are the only cool thing on this site, but I've just got here a couple weeks ago. lol.

There are some really cool things I've been seeing other than siggys, so I really don't know what you're talking about.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JtSm

When I ever post anything it gets ignored. I don't think my stuff is that bad xD

Making signatures is just a hobby to me and nothing more. Sorry if I contributed to a problem of only signatures are the only cool thing on this site, but I've just got here a couple weeks ago. lol.

There are some really cool things I've been seeing other than siggys, so I really don't know what you're talking about.

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having been here (sporadically) for a while i've just seen a decline in the number of non-signature things. It's also kind of a challenge to everyone. Signatures are challenging in their own way, but the only way to get better overall is by diversifying your portfolio. There's skills that can be translated from a large piece to a small piece to typography to photography... there's a lot to learn from trying new stuff!

Also, i don't think people loose confidence in their stuff when people don't reply. It's more like you just hope for people to reply. the point of this forum is to share your work, get help and feedback, and get inspiration from other peoples' works (or at least that's what i think it is). Right now there's a serious lack of critiques and there's a lot to be learned from critiquing other people's work as well.

The way I see it the problem lies with GFX in general. Seemingly less and less ppl seem to be interested in or/and keep it up once they started with it. It's not only here, but everywhere.
Nowadays it's really hard to find a good active site and if you do it's mostly the same ppl that have been doing this for a long time and know each other from way back. Making it somewhat hard as beginner in between all those very experienced ppl.
Maybe it's me being on the wrong sites or maybe it's that there are too many different sites for the same thing so that every site has a small portion but none is really big like this place used to be, but I don't think so.
An other thing I noticed is that there are still beginners popping up every now and then, but they never seem to make into what I call the middle class. They stay at beginner level, but never really evolve unless they are really guided by someone they know.

So all in all I think it's a circle spiraling downwards. Less people interested in GFX + Less people commenting and really helping people out makes for less experienced people, which on it's turn makes for less commenting again since their are less experienced ppl, which makes for less people evolving, more quiting and less ppl interested and so onwards.

Maybe I'm over thinking it, but this has been on my mind for quite some time. I miss them good old days when this place was at it's peak. You could spend several hours here and never always find stomething new to read.

Ah the good ol' days. My life would be looking very different right now if it wasn't for those.
Perhaps people have also realised that there's fuck all in the way of jobs out there for design these days, and if there is it's stiff competition. I have a diploma in graphic design and it basically counts for absolutely zilch, like being an art or english major. Looking back I wish I did a cookery course, fuck loads of cook jobs out there.