37signals has recently rethought the design of their forums for their products Basecamp and Highrise.

• Design Decisions: New forums at Basecamp and Highrise

The new forums do away with the traditional box-heavy design approach. John Gruber says it best:

The “standard” template for web-based forum design is just awful – just dozens and dozens of boxes for something that shouldn’t be boxy at all. 37signals’s new forum design is a good rethinking of the form. It’s just lists: a list of forums, a list of topics within each forum, and a list of posts within each topic.

I really like the new look of the forums. They are much cleaner and easier on the eyes. There’s also plenty of whitespace, which is always a good thing.

Via Daring Fireball.