Flash-y Websites

Adobe’s Flash software is claimed by the company to be the industry leading interactive content creation tool (www.adobe.com/products/flash/). Despite the common criticisms of Flash such as its relatively high download times, dependence on a fast internet connection, and occasional inaccessibility of its content by search engine crawlers, introducing Flash programming into websites is increasingly growing in popularity. Perhaps it is the “flashiness” and high level of creativity, interactivity, and cutting-edge design skills that are demonstrated by a website containing Flash content that makes it such a popular medium, particularly for film and other artsy types of industries.

I got my first real exposure to Adobe Flash CS3 last summer in an elective class I took as part of my graduate program in Professional and Technical Communication. The class was a brief introduction to Flash Animation and I got some exposure to motion and shape tweening, morphing text, adding buttons and associating actions with them. It seemed like the creative potential of Flash was endless and was clearly only limited by my inexperience with it. Flash can be a wonderful medium for creativity and great visual design.

I recently ran into a very interesting Flash site -- http://www.mono-1.com/monoface/main.html. This site was created by a Minneapolis-based PR firm, mono, that works with high-end clients to help raise brand awareness, and develop new identities and brand campaigns. The monoface site was created as a New Year’s greeting card from the company. It is a Flash-intensive site that is highly interactive. Essentially the premise of the site is that it consists of head shots of several real-life mono employees, the facial features of whom the user can mix and match by simple clicking into seemingly endless new combinations (759,375 to be precise!). The results are generally hilarious and the interactivity of this site makes it an enjoyable site to dabble with for a few idle minutes. Monoface has gained the reputation as a high-quality time waster and as the Funny Site of the Day. Despite the time killing potential, it is hard to deny that this site is a brilliant expression of Flash. The transitions as the faces move from one iteration to the next are seamless and the features in each of the faces appear to be blended perfectly. From a visual design standpoint, this site has an extremely clean and simple design and unity with the mono’s corporate website is quite apparent based on the color scheme of the monoface website. The background of the site is generally white with the typography appearing in blue. In screens where the Flash elements are loading, the background appears blue with the typography in white. These are the same basic colors are those used on the corporate website. The typography on this site is minimal and appears in all lower case, which lends this site a youthful and modern look, reminiscent of electronic forms of communication like texting.

It is obvious based on the visual design of the site that the head shots are the point of emphasis. The faces are positioned in the center of the screen where the eye is immediately drawn. Furthermore, the faces are the largest visual element on the screen and are also the only elements that have any color other than white, blue, and occasionally black (as on the works “happy new year from all of us”) associated with them. All of the aforementioned attributes establish the hierarchy of the faces and draw the eye instantly to these head shots. The clean white background helps to further highlight the form against it – the headshot.

Navigation on this site is generally simple and effective and the site, overall, does not have any distinct purpose other than to entertain and to highlight the technical and creative expertise of the mono company to its present and potential future clients.

Another interesting Flash site that I discovered is http://unlimited.orange.co.uk/flash/go. This site belongs to Orange, a UK-based mobile communications company. The Flash website was created especially to promote the company’s “Speak Easy" pay-as-you-go plan. The campaign's tagline is "Good things should never end" and the Flash site, therefore, seeks to offers a virtually unlimited experience (http://www.adverblog.com/archives/003290.htm). In this site, you can scroll down seemingly endlessly, encountering various interactive characters along the way. As the name of the company is Orange, orange is the predominant color used in this Flash site. In addition to being the “theme color,” orange is a warm color, reminiscent of summer and happiness and freedom, and works well to establish a friendly and warm tone to this interactive site. The rainbow is a prevailing element throughout and works as a line of sorts to guide the eye down the site. The expansive nature of this Flash site actually makes the rainbow key to providing a sense of continuity and guidance to the site. Ridiculous as it may sound, it is actually possible to get “lost” in this site as you scroll aimlessly further and further down, if not for the rainbow path. The interactive icons and figures are the points of emphasis and are made to stand out against the rainbow colors with the use of neutrals – black and white. The black provides an excellent contrast against the background, drawing the eye to these interactive elements. The elements range from mind-reading games to “talking” characters to trees to “create your own music” characters.

Despite the seemingly random nature of the activities as you make your way down the site, the creators have incorporated a good sense of balance into it. The number of interactive elements are generally symmetrically (or, sometimes, asymmetrically) balanced on either side of the rainbow. If the element is a heavy one, such as the “leave your message here” character, it is the only element present in that area. On the other hand, if the element is smaller, such as the monkey, there are two of them positioned an equal distance from the boom-box in the center. This helps the eye keep from getting visually overwhelmed by keeping interactive-element clutter to a minimum.

The Orange site is an excellent use of Flash. As this is not the main corporate site, but a side advertisement, navigation and typography is minimal. Although this site is aimed at consumers of Orange's mobile communications services, it may be better enjoyed long-term by a juvenile audience. Overall, it meets its purpose of entertaining, while at the same time visually reminding us that it is Orange’s site and that one of their tag lines is that “Good things should never end.”