• Having a great, friendly and knowledgeable community.
• The users need to be active (sign on daily / every few days).
• Needs to have a very targeted user base. In other words most of the members need to have signed up to be members and become active in the community, not just sign up to gain access to a few things, not post, then forget about the community entirely.

We could be here all day listing off factors. Of course the forum needs to have a decent amount of traffic so designers get heard, and it needs to have a user friendly design so web designers can use the forum with ease. Anyway enough talking, here is the list.

Digital Point Forums

This forum may not be just about web design, but it has one of the largest forum communities on the internet with over 290,000 registered members! You can buy, sell and trade services on there, so its the perfect place for web designers. You can also pick up alot of work on there, and clients too!

http://forums.digitalpoint.com

Designers Talk

This forum has a really nice simple layout, and their forums are always buzzing with new threads. They have many forum categories that are split in to more a less everything you can think of. They cover web 2.0, graphic design, flash, illustration, advertising, marketing, typography and many more.

http://www.designerstalk.com/forums/

Web Designer Forum

Although this forum is hosted on a .co.uk domain (it doesn’t mean its just for UK people), and even though they only have around 10,000 registered members (compared to some big boy forums), they have an awesome community for web designers. Their forum categories cover all aspects of web design and i love the header design on their website. I think these forums are an awesome place to show off your web design work.

http://www.webdesignerforum.co.uk

Webmaster Talk

This forum covers web design and other webmaster aspects such as promotion and search engine optimization. Their nice simple forum design is very easy to navigate round. They have nearly 90,000 registered members, and there are always people online.

http://www.webmaster-talk.com

Estetica Design Forum

This forum is insane! All web designers must be registered at this forum! Its simple beautiful! They have a small user base of around 11,000 members, but there are always web designers online. Ive just been on now and there are hundreds of guests, and 70 members online! That’s really great for a forum with a small community. Their forum covers many aspects of web design, and its worth checking out.

http://www.estetica-design-forum.com

WebDesignDev Forums

If you haven’t registered at our very own forum then go ahed. It has a small user base of just over 1,200 members, but we are trying to get the forum buzzing again with web designers and developers. You can post your work for critique, ask questions and share your thoughts with us.
Web Design Forums

Kirupa Forums

Now Kirupa is usually for flash design and development, but as the years have gone on they have extended their forums to cope with web design. You can post your designs for critic, and you can also talk about html, css and styling web design.

http://www.kirupa.com/forum/

Talk Freelance

This is an awesome forum for freelance web designers. Their forum design hooks me in, and then they have so many forum categories that cover every aspect of web design and freelancing.

http://www.talkfreelance.com

Smashing Magazine Forum

A forum for one of the biggest web design blogs on the Internet. That sums it up, you need to register. Although they only have around 3,000 members, there is much talent on the forums, so its worth registering and getting to know other designers and add them to your contact base.

WebDesign Chat

This is a great forum for interacting with other members about web design. They have over 20,000 members and many forum categories to post in.

http://www.webdesignchat.org