Tips on Flash websites

  • Thread starter donbenni
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I'm currently creating a 100% flash website and was wondering if anyone at all could provide some feedback and suggestions.

Warning, it's only a design so far - The links don't work and there currently isn't a preloader:

http://www.donbenni.co.nr/

The idea behind the site is to just have it as something to show people. The site itself and the content are just as important as each other. I've been working as a designer for a web company for 8 months now and haven't got a site that's cool enough to say, "Hey look, this is what i've done". The site isn't aimed a "business people", but might get shown to a future employer if good enough.

So i'm after design criticisms, content suggestions such as what would be good to add or take away etc. or just whatever springs to mind :)

Appreciated 👍
 

Pretty sweet design there, But im not a big advocate of flash websites since they require manually editing the .fla file each time you want to update something. Unless your fluent in AS1/2 and make it a dynamic website that loads everything from text files and what not.

Other than that, I like it.
👍
 
:) Thanks. I've already thought of the updating problem and it seems quite easy to get content from a txt file dynamically. The news section for instance will be dynamic. Thanks for pointing that out 👍
 
Don,

That looks slick so far. What's to stop you from creating an animated Flash header and using PHP to design the rest of the page for easy updating? From having worked with Flash based applications for so long, you really have to be an advanced developer to get the entire site to scale well for different browser resolutions, browsing habits, etc.

Just curious. Where did you get the cel-shaded race car? Is that something you designed? Just curious - I am impressed with your direction so far.
 
The drifting Silvia is one of my creations from a while back, it's based on one of GTP's member's Photomode images from GT4 - i can't remember who though! Have a look here for all my stuff :)

As for the Flash + PHP idea: It did cross my mind (but ASP instead) but i just wanted to see if a whole site in Flash would be possible and it seems to be so far. I'm bound to make a few sites in the future which have Flash headers with the menu in etc.

And as for resolutions: I generally make my sites with a width of 770 px max so that they fit on anything as low as 800 x 600. I hate seeing sidescrolling bars on websites and this seems the most sensible option without messing with % values in code which does my head in :P

Thanks for the comment 👍
 
If you're making the site just to show off, by all means do a flash site. However, if you plan on doing anything too awefully important with this site, either make an HTML version as well, or just do a flash header and PHP as the page.

As far as the dynamic updating from text files, well, that's easy. You wont have a problem there.

Overall not a bad looking site, however there something about the navigation in it's current state that doesn't jive with me. Perhaps I'll think differently once you do some more work to it.

👍
 
I'm a great fan of flash sites personally, and it looks great! :) The one thing i'd say is to change the font on the right hand side navigation. It looks a little childish, if you know what i mean.
 
donbenni
I'm currently creating a 100% flash website and was wondering if anyone at all could provide some feedback and suggestions.
No disrespect, donbenni, but why does everyone have to use the same Lorem ipsum dolor squid pro quo for every new website template? Jeez, we know you can be more original than that!

Otherwise, it looks quite neat; I have DSL, but so pre-loading animation was necessary.
 
pupik
No disrespect, donbenni, but why does everyone have to use the same Lorem ipsum dolor squid pro quo for every new website template? Jeez, we know you can be more original than that!

:P Just because it looks a hell of a lot nicer than "content content content content content content content content content content content content content content content content content content content content content content content content content content content content content content content content content content content content content content content content content content content content content"

I must admit, at first i hated the idea of Lipsum, but after creating a dozen websites, i've really learned to appreciate just how damn useful it is during the design phase. http://www.lipsum.com/

Jon.
The one thing i'd say is to change the font on the right hand side navigation. It looks a little childish, if you know what i mean.

I'll bear that in mind 👍

GTRacer4
Looks really slick Don, what font is that?

Which one? ;) The "dbdesigns", "welcome" and "news" font is called Soft Hits, the main text is Tahoma and i can't remember off the top of my head which the "version 1" and menu fonts are.
 
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