I saw this posted on the Polk County Sheriffs page on FB and it brought back a flood of PS Party memories. We had so much fun back in the day. For those that are new our PS Parties were silly, fun filled Photoshop antics. We let our PS skillz shine! There would be drop shadows, starbursts, and lens flares galore! It was a wonderful way to blow off steam and create epic memories
I remember the Halloween version, the others are before my time. So GDF goes back to 2002? Who started the forum? Are there any original users still around?
Iām pretty much one of the original users, sometime around 2003-4. There used to be a solid group of us, around a dozen or so. And it just kept getting bigger.
Kool is probably user #1 after Allan the Founder. Or TallMike was maybe.
Sad to say I donāt remember much of the history of it though. I remember some names like Defjoe, casedsgn, Magnus, Benjo, Keyare, D-Frag and D-zine
I donāt remember when I joined ā maybe around 2010ā12. I caught the tail end of the time when the Photoshop parties were still taking place, when there were usually several dozen forum members logged in.
Even though the crowd has thinned, I ran into this encouraging webpage earlier today, which says our Graphic Design Forum is the second-best design community to join. (AIGA was first.)
If I remember correctly I joined somewhere around the end of 2005. I fell in love with the community immediately. Been here ever since lol. I canāt believe some of us are going on 20+ years
(this is the longest relationship Iāve ever had)
AIGAā¦
When I joined here way back when, all theā¦umā¦folksā¦at AIGA kept telling me I didnāt know what I was talking about. Bleeds are 1/8", there are no RGB print processes, and basically āget lost.ā
Their loss.
(Though RGB print processes are slowly becoming extinct. Very few vendors out there have working Lambda or Lightjet printers/processors (uses RGB lasers to expose wet-processed photographic film. Not to mention the wide format media is getting scarce too. )
I joined HOWDesign at the same time because there were a few people mentioning they belonged to both. I lasted about 2 months. They were just downright mean to everyone
I belonged to the HOW forum, too, but wasnāt very active. If I remember correctly, the corporate owners were unwilling to allow the moderators to enforce any rules, which left it wide open to being overrun by spam and trolls. Iām unsure about the details, though.
It did become overrun by spam and trolls. That I can confirm. Who is to blame, I donāt know. I get the sense that spam and trolls were on the upswing at a time when a lot of traffic was moving to Facebook.
I personally never got mean remarks as I didnāt say much of anything. I didnāt feel comfortable from the start and couldnāt find anywhere I felt like I fit in. I would read a lot and was shocked at the horrible replies and nothing was ever done about the personal attacks. As my good fortune would have it, my friendships here at GDF were blossoming so leaving HOW was no-brainer.
The biggest thing Iāve learned from being in an online setting is that people who think they know everything realllly donāt like to be told different. Itās anything professional, from Graphic Design, to Medical, to Animals, to Knitting LOL The comment section will be filled with āwell actuallyā from some no name. Itās infuriating.
There would be drop shadows, starbursts, and lens flares galore! It was a wonderful way to blow off steam and create epic memories 
)
