Thursday, December 9, 2010

First Flash site... EVAR

Well I hav completed my first Flash website. The great thing about it is that it was a learning process and my next one will be significantly better. The bad thing is that I don't like feeling that way about the things I make, but the high blood pressure from screwing 10 other things up while trying to fix one little flaw (it was like my site was imploding on myself, perhaps designating itself to be a metaphor for my brain functionality) was starting to make me hate the entire Flash program. And that's no good. I'd rather take a grade hit than get a pit in my stomach the next time I start a Flash project. I want Flash to be my friend.

Things I learned though, besides the obvious technical skills to even start building a site in it:

1. I think I would do a lot better with a paper blueprint. Maybe with more practice I won't feel the need to chart every button and what I'll need to do to make everything cooperate, but I found myself getting lost in the little squares of the timeline a lot sooner than I thought. I think the next project I undertake, after creating a digital comp, I'm going to go back to the sketch book, redraw the final look, and start taking notes on that paper about what each specific element should be (what kind of symbol with what properties, animations, or events on which timeline), what needs to do what, and even basic Actionscript earmarks that will need to be considered on the page.

2. Flash can be waaaaay cooler than I realized. And it's more important in web development than I thought. I've only heard of complaints that people only know how to build sites in Flash and that nobody knows code anymore, never the other way around. And I guess that it goes without saying that being able to do BOTH is in fact the best quality. I'm glad I was raised on code, but I'm excited about what I can make in Flash. I'll need to start dividing my time between learning more Actionscript and getting to know jQuery.

Here it is. Enjoy.

I already know what needs to be fixed in both functionality and design. I'll catch it next time around.

http://www.fall10.graphicinterfacedesign.com/students/hswenson/flash/nocutsnoglue/

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