Questions & Answers

[ctaulbee]

Is a area of the forum for sharing your works-in-progress, getting help with design related questions, as well as showcasing your finished works.

There are reasons for each Design Forum section and they were not just created to take up space in the forum, or to create something for the moderators to do, this will serve to explain their purpose and how to use them correctly.

There are forum sections here at EFX for everything, all topics have a home, we want you to be able to ask and get all the help you would need, we do however ask one thing that you ask all your questions and make all your posts in the correct section, if you find yourself unsure, it's no big deal, just ask any site moderator they will guide you.

This post will provide an overview of how each section works and explain the general guidelines for posting in each section of the Design Forum.

The Design Forum main sections are:

Work In Process
Design Discussions
Showcase
Tutorials
Resource Requests

Lets define them and explain what each is for, exactly.


Work In Process

What is WIP?

It stands for "Work In Progress"

Progress = Movement forwards, esp towards a place or objective...

So in this case the progression of a cover from start to finish, the steps and interaction or feedback along the way, so if you want to start one be prepared to show the steps as you progress through your design.

So with that in mind WIP topics here at EFX come in two basic types.

1. Is to allow New to Intermediate Level Designers to go through the process of designing a cover and get help along the way so they can improve and learn from the input given by others with more experience.

2. Is to allow Established Designers to share their process or steps of making a cover with others of lessor experience, they may also ask for input or opinions should they want it along the way, and again this is so others may learn from them.

Failure to show the progression of steps and allow for this interaction during the design process defeats the purpose in both cases, and will be cause for us to move your topic to a more suitable forum section or remove it entirely if we feel your intent is not so share experience or to gain it.

With that in mind:

New to Intermediate Designers, you need to if you want to use the WIP forum get your work in there very early on, like as soon as you have something started, you can't get help "with a design" after the process is done, you can however get feedback if you want too, but it makes more sense to get help along the way, that is if you truly want it. If you only have questions to ask and don't want to do the entire process that is fine but ask them in Design Help section, don't open a WIP topic if you have a cover that you are working on that is nearly done and you just want some quick feedback ask that in the Design Help section.

Established Designers, you are not helping anyone by posting a couple of previews for your cover in a WIP thread and offering nothing else, not adding any commentary on any of the process you used to make it, not showing any of the steps, giving no insight on your reasons for any design choices that went into it, just a picture of I'm working on this, or a complete cover (front, back and spine done or nearly so), and then only to ask a simple question like "Is this ok?" or "Should I change anything?", those are topics for Design Help and that forum is quite open to every member of the site, plus you'll get the same answer in there as you would in the WIP forum.

Ask yourself seriously, what help do you honestly think it is if you open a WIP thread then share none of the process steps mentioned above with a beginner or an intermediate level designer. I mean they can "look" at your finished cover in the gallery or showcase and learn just as much from that it's the same scenario is it not? And if your an established designer how much help do you really need designing a cover or for that matter even want, likely not too much, opinions maybe sure, so the process is more about sharing what your doing than it is about learning for you. Still this interaction is good provided it is done correctly, then everyone wins.

The rules for posting in WIP are in an announcement at the top that forum, read them if you have not already done so, before opening a new topic in there, "you" are expected to make yourself aware of site rules (on everything not just this) we are not required to tell you about them.


Design Discussions

This section is for Design discussions of all kinds whether it be getting feedback, sharing design ideas, showing us a snapshot of your current project or telling us about one you are thinking about starting.

If you have a design that is basically finished and as such will not really qualify as a work in process but still you would like to get some feedback on it before actually posting it to the site, we want you to do that and here is the place to get that.

Or if your stuck on a cover at any point and just want some input for one or two things your unsure about but you don't want to go thru the entire design process in a WIP thread then you are welcome ask right here.


What we don't want, and the reason we have these two sections in the Design Forum to begin with is the WIP forum cluttered up with simple feedback questions about covers that are better served being asked in here, questions like "Is this done?", "Is this OK?", "Should I change anything?", "Does this work?" but in this forum that is completely OK so ask away, plus you get the same answer as you would in a WIP thread it's the same people, both are open forums in the same section.



Showcase

This part of the forum is for Members to display their completed works, any completed cover uploaded to the gallery and approved, you may post a preview of it in this section. It does not need to have gone through WIP or anything else if it is approved and in our gallery you can show it here if you like, we leave that to the artists.  

You may use 3d previews and discuss whatever you wish about the process or nothing up to you.

When making comments in the showcase section:

Please keep in mind that these are NOT WIP's, so that means don't to make suggestions about how an artist should change their work, do not offer any critique of any kind, that is not the intent of this section, so if you have nothing nice to say then refrain from making any comment at all.

The last thing, this forum is for showing off covers that are available on this site. So if your cover has not been uploaded to the gallery and approved, please do not show it in this forum, those threads will be deleted if the cover is not hosted here or if has been rejected for any reason, all items in here must be available for download. Also note a link in your post is required going back to the gallery for the cover showcased, there is a tutorial on how to do this, a link is in the showcase rules post top of that forum.  



Tutorials

Section for sharing how-to on most anything design related, if you are not sure ask, there are specific rules on how to post topics in there, so always remember to read the section stickies first.

This means NO YouTube videos, NO links to images or anything else to off-site hosts, everything posted in the Tutorials MUST be uploaded to this site, this way a year, two, five ten those items will still be here, off site things have tendency to get moved or deleted, leaving us with a broken link and a useless tutorial so that part is non-negotiable.

If you want to share beyond using simple attached images then contact a staff member and we will help you get things like videos or other images, pdf etc posted and linked in locally to your topic.



Resource Requests

This is for asking to have added to the site resource section, anything you may need for something you are working on or intend to start, it does not have to be in WIP or Design Talk for you to make a request.



Hopefully this will resolve all confusion as to what each section is for and what you should post in each one, remember to check in each section for specific rules as I have not included all that in this post, it's long enough as is.