11 November 2007

Macromedia Flash (now Adobe Flash) turned 10 years old recently. And going back through the years on the anniversary site brought back some good memories.

I jumped in with Flash 4 and quickly upgraded to Flash 5. I purchased Macromedia Flash 5 in a package with Freehand 8 (even before I used Dreamweaver) and started to play. I learned quickly by doing the tutorials that came with the software, reading the manual and surfing the web for tutorials on anything else I didn't understand.

I started out designing entire sites in Flash and modeled my creative direction after people like Joen Asmussen (turtleshell.com) who led the way with his 1998 site and then his follow up 2000 site. I even attempted to recreate his 2000 site from scratch to force myself to think bigger and learn some of the more advanced Flash techniques like page transition, variable animation and the use of sound.

Next, I went through a phase where I designed more traditional html/css sites with flash elements used to enhance the more static layout. Navigation and simple movement in headers or page elements were the perfect place for Flash to shine.

More recently I've been exploiting the amazing technology behind streaming flash video. This technology has allowed traditional 320x240 low quality video to become 640x360 high quality video at any length - accessible to the DSL/Broadband user anytime and anywhere. Add the ability to make this size video full screen and it actually looks good on on a LCD/Plasma HDTV.

If you have ever used Flash - take the time to walk down memory lane. You'll laugh, you'll cry (okay-maybe not...). But it's just fun to see how far we've come since 1996.