Every now and then I visit my early days of the internet.  It’s now come to 12+ years since I designed my very first web page, with domain redirection from what was then cjb.net and free hosting from the likes of geocities.com.  Fast forward 4-5 years and we were having a new era and wave of web design.  Macromedia had revolutionized the the world of web design with Flash and companies and individuals around the globe were producing rich, interactive websites that stunned the world.  Here, I will pay tribute to three such flash designs/videos which were done years ago, videos of the quality and level of professionalism, which, I think changed the web as we see it today.

The first is the intro to the Balthaser Studios website.  This was a full flash designed website that truly stunned.  Balthaser studios has now created the world’s first browser based flash enabled designed too, Balthaser: FX Pro; an equivalent of SwishMax, which makes rich flash designing easier.  Personally, I’m a fan of the simple CSS and XHTML design with powerful content management,  but that’s the industry I’m a part of.  However, flashy design has by no means gone out of fashion, and depending on what industry you’re in, flash could still be your mainstream web design tool.  Here then, is the much respected balthaser studios video:

Second in my list of favorite videos is the intro from Mike Cesar for his own website. What can I say, the man has talent.  He is quite simply one of the most graceful and talented flash designers I have come across in over a decade.  Have a look and see for yourself the wonder that he produced over 4-5 years ago:

Last on my list today is a fight scene that includes some matrix type effects  by someone from China (I’m guessing by the name).  This is a great example of the results you can achieve in flash with many, many bits of patience.  Just imagine the frame by frame rendering required to put this entire sequence together.  Bare in mind that this was done years ago. It reflects the sheer power of what we can do on the web thanks to Flash.

If you’ve got other amazing flash videos to share, I’d love to see them.  Like I said, flash is not particularly my piece of pie, but I’m always there to appreciate good work.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 1st, 2009 at 12:52 am and is filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.