Re: FLASH: Organic Flash

[unique]

At the exact moment of 2000.01.26.14.08, her/his local time, Panagos, Plato

<

PPANAGOSjuf [dot] org

> put forth:


> Hi All, 

> 

> When I first saw Flash I fell in love, I was blown away, it blew the doors

> of old static HTML I'd been doing and added the dimension to web sites that

> was desperately lacking. Now that the dust has settled and the gloss has

> worn off a bit I've become a little more objective (read: cynical), now I

> feel that Flash has gotten a little too slick and grown too far from the

> organic bitmap world into clean vector lines that blur from one flash site

> to the next. I understand the limitations of the technology but I am curious

> if anyone knows of flash sites that walk the line between the bitmap and

> vector worlds? I am fortunate enough to have recently accepted a job with a

> company whose entire product line is in Flash and want to have my cake and

> eat it too.


Who doesn't!


Hi Plato,


Flash hasn't "gotten ... too slick and grown too far". It's a matter of what

people choose to do with the tools they have.


Give a kid a drum, first thing he's gonna do is bang on it as loud as he can.

Some never grow beyond that stage; others do. It's the ones that move on to

rhythm, subtle voicings, etc., that end up becoming "professionals".


Frankly I'm pleased that a lot of Flash that's out there hasn't surpassed the

drum-banging stage ... that leaves more space for me and my work!


Sounds as if you're off to a great start, with your attitude, Plato! Stick with

it.


I imagine that you've noticed that the work on the tothepoint site uses bitmaps

reduced to two colors (black and white), and converted to vectors. Reducing a

bitmap to a small number of colors is greatly facilitated by the Preview Export

feature in Fireworks. You can preview up to 4 different versions, so you get to

experiment and compare. And, you can easily "re-map" one color to another one!

(Very cool easy feature.) Try out the freebie, if you don't have it!


I agree with Marc: Hillman Curtis seems to have a good handle on clean,

"moderate" use of Flash. Here's another example of Flash "Minimalism" that I

like ... check out the site itself, plus the second and fourth sites on the

"Examples" page: http://www.redwooddesign.com . Please notice that this guy has

figured out how to do preloading *without* thermometer bars -- a breath of fresh

air.


HTH,


Ken Sherwood


                         *zenkat: the Flash trailer*

                    http://www.kensherwood.com/zenkat.htm


kensherwood.com

http://www.kensherwood.com




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