Extreme forum design?

[Donny Bahama]

Can anyone post links to some examples of some really different (preferably awesome rather than atrocious) looking forums? I'm talking about a forum that doesn't even look like a forum.

The forums home page for http://www.jamieoliver.com/forums/ is the only example I can give. It doesn't look at all like a forum. (At least not until you enter one of the forums, then it's nothing special.) I'd like to find something that carries the non-traditional/elegant look throughout the forum.

Does anyone know of anything like this?

[Donny Bahama]

Ironically, I'm not allowed to ask this question on phpbb's forums!
http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic...221860#2221860

[sypher]

Why exactly do you need these examples?

[Donny Bahama]

Purely for inspiration.

I'm doing a new site, the nature of which dictates that it be a forum first and foremost, but I don't want it to look like a forum. I was impressed by the jamieoliver.com forum's home page (and it certainly gives me some good ideas) but I'm wondering if anyone has taken the "non-forum looking forum" paradigm a step or two further.

[saltedm8]

well, ime not trying to spam but this is my forums that i have customised myself http://www.luv-2-cook.com/Forums/

i am also in the middle of making extra pages into the forum and replacing all my html pages into this http://www.luv-2-cook.com/Forums/recipes.php and http://www.luv-2-cook.com/Forums/homepage.php <--- these pages are literly in the forum templates file - with all others

( so my members would be able to log in/out the forums from any page on my website, and it gives me the admin link on every page too - even jamie has not got that )

i think ive gone about as far as it is possible with the phpbb forums, in the way of customisation, but i am still thinking of new ideas, so i may think of some way to completly customise the viewforum and viewtopic pages ryther than just the index page

( funny, i am a member of both the phpbb forums and jamie olivers )

[Donny Bahama]

I disagree about taking it "as far as possible". The viewforum and viewtopic pages are still pretty standard and can be as heavily customized as the forum index page. I've done a fair amount of this on the phpbb forum I set up at work, but it's still nothing I'd call "extreme". Your forum index is a great example of a forum that doesn't look like a forum but I'm hoping someone has created viewforum/viewtopic pages that are equally different.