Really Good Flash Sites

[Photomax]

Flash is definitely becoming "yesterdays" technology as far as producing modern websites goes.

More and more designers are fully embracing Modern Web Standards design. Its both extremely powerful and efficient. Clients are catching on as well. They hire designers to help communicate THEIR ideas, products or services. In too many cases the use of heavy Flash design became more about showing off the 'flashy" design skills of the web designer and less about creating an efficient site for the client. The movement to web standards, CSS, and efficient XHTML is a reaction to that "problem."

There are some amazing designers working in eastern Europe, places like Poland, Croatia etc; unknown guys (and girls) just pushing the envelope with way cool, lean, efficient sites.

Larger corporations and organizations are, in many cases, being left behind: with stale code that is just so "2003."

The future looks good though: older browsers (good riddance IE6 !!!) will get dumped, better standards will emerge, better graphic files will get used, bandwidth will increase and the standards of design will continue to explode...

Cheers,

Max

[robc]

and here's another new and inconsequential flash site for you. These guys obviously don't know what they are doing.

http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/

[George Kara]

Flash is excellent for controlling content from piracy. Using the on2 technology you can restrict the content to the delivery website alone.

While flash websites are questionable, it is very effective for delivering moving imagery. In other words I believe that flash is best used when embedded in a website.

George

[Frank Petronio]

Do mean it is immune from screen snapshots?

[Marko]

Nothing is really immune on the Web.

It is only safe so long as the effort needed to take it is equal or greater than the potential gain realized from taking it.

[Aaron van de Sande]

Yeah recording companies(sony bmg) are also the ones that were installing rootkits last year with their music cds. Just because something is popular doesn't make it good.

I tell you what. Go have at look at this web site and pay special attention to the clients in their portfolio. Madonna and the Beatles just to metion a couple of minor ones. Then go tell tell them that their sites don't conform to web standards and Flash is not a good thing for marketing and see what they think of your opinion.

http://www.firstbornmultimedia.com/

[George Kara]

Hi Frank

Yeah I use captivate for screen shots. This works fine for still images but of course motion isnt included.

[Gary Suitter]

An excellent flash site by one of my favorite photographers...
http://thomasbarbey.com/index.cfm

[Justin Cormack]

and here's another new and inconsequential flash site for you. These guys obviously don't know what they are doing.

http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/

No they dont. They should stick to photography.

[Justin Cormack]

An excellent flash site by one of my favorite photographers...
http://thomasbarbey.com/index.cfm

big splash screen that tells me that I should have a 1024x768 screen (filling up my 1280x1024 screen). Says "enter flash site". Close browser window. Forget.

If you have a flash only site you have to remember that there are huge numbers of people who will just not bother, or it will crash their browser or not work. And you can do most of the stuff you want in html+dom scripting now.

And I am not just a young fogey who remembers "Skip intro..."

Oh and the people who mentioned sound - I close any window that plays sounds at me in 4 seconds or less (if I have the sound turned on).

Photography sites have no general need for flash either, as the basic material is still images.

There are still subtle (often invisible to most users) uses of flash that work well. If you can see its flash its probably not one of them. Site navigation should never ever be flash, as that replaces the expected user interface.