IS THERE A FUTURE FOR 'FLASH DESIGNERS'?

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3 2003 @ 10:28 AM

Lately, I've been popped up this question in many occasions, thus blogging about this may come in place, and might interest some audience. Most people talking in lists I'm in are developers from different levels and backgrounds, and I hardly get to talk to producers from the early days of Flash, when it was a cool way to make animated banners or e-cards. So, what's in Flash MX 2004 for designers?

The latest generation of Flash has been made to appeal more to application developers all over the place. This is quite evident if we center our attention on Flash Professional. Being a deseloper (my current stats: 60% developer, 40% designer), I've found very pleasant improvements in the Flash production environment, the developer inside me is very happy and standing on his tongue. But my designer is quite bored... nothing new has been introduced that can be of use from an artistic point of view.

Timeline effects did you say? Well, some of those cheap tricks are nice, but they won't make it in a serious production environment. ActionScript Behaviors? Hey, if the designer inside me uses them, my developer will kill him... seriously. Video integration.... well, now that's something to be excited about, but is not directly a design matter, but important as a production asset.

That's the reason the balance is still very positive for me, the guy that produces and integrates applications and content. It would be fair to say that Flash (since version 5) has make me cross the development/design boundaries, and that there's no way back now...

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JESTERXL

OCTOBER 3 2003 @ 11:31 AM

It's still cool to do Flash design for banner ads and e-cards. A company comissioned me for consulting to utilize Flashcom in these environments. In the ad and design world, this is big money... specially because even if these ad agencies outsourcing the work to design firms try to bring it in house, they usually don't get the programming power that comes with a Flash Programmer. Hence, design shops getting a programmer/Flash Programmer have an edge, and this is a very viable market. Marketing people love this, because you can even in Flash 5 using XML, customize the add, in realtime, and this is the big selling point. People have patented technologies on just this. You get a phat, video compositing type Flasher like Gmunk (gmunk.com) combined with a decent Flash programmer, and some phat stuff emerges. Besides, the ad agency gets the work with their "Flashy" designs, not RIA's. Not yet, anyway.

...I don't want to do that type of work for a living, though.

I agree, the mustardpot.com community has gone stagnant. Every so often some dude's portfolio is posted, but I've been far removed from the Flash design lists, so I don't hear about them much as developers give a flying hoot.

Video integration is different. It's a very powerful asset to have. With the ability to usurp Apple's movie trailer division, that whole genre of movie sites all having that cliche (low/med/high) button combo with a poster and quick time is over. The movie industry has money too, that's why they compared it to the gaming industry. Yes, the gaming industry usurped it's revenue, but there's still a ton of dough. DVD, movie sites, video on the web... true vidoe you can do stuff with, and WAY more relaibale than Shockwave is a very powerful addition, and most of it "design" based. This, though, pales in coparison to it's ability in the instructional media arena. Here is where video shines and is used a lot.

I think the balance has shifted hardcore. Although designers are no longer in the community limelight, they are the ones that sell our RIA's. I'm sorry, but Halo will not save you. Period.

I do agree; Macromedia thinks that there is no design innovation left in Flash; this has only contributed to the downfall of further designer-esque innovation. They are not trying to add Photoshop/Illustrator/After Effects type functionality in Flash. Although I'd love it if they did, there is no money in that market. Developers are the ones making the money with Flash applications. I talked about ads eariler, but remember: designers get the deals, we produce the final content.

Personally, I think it sucks. I love the growth I've gone through in becoming a fully fledged programmer. I make a lot more money because I am specialized and am more technical. However, I'm still part artist, and recognize the importance of design. It can't be denied in the ROI.

It's ok, though, because when Halo and WebService access comes cliche, there is only one way to stand out from the crowd when yours is the 100th RSS reader app: a good design.

OSCAR TRELLES

OCTOBER 3 2003 @ 12:25 PM

Jesse, yours has to be the longest comments I've ever seen here, and I couldn't agree more with the bottom line of it.

I'm following the same path: becoming more a developer, and seeing how everyday I get more and more 'design work' coming to me because of my 'development background'. It's because I know how to connect pretty interfaces with complex back-ends that I'm still on the market, and seeing growth.

Personally, I don't want to quit being an artist, and I won't by any means. I used to have a design portfolio where this blog stands now. Then I realized it wasn't growing anymore and there wasn't use for it. It's not like I want to go back, but I need to diversify, and create new things. That's why I'm about to leave the job I have right now, and unleash myself into the wild.

Not only good design will save our world, but a good understanding of the business logic... but that's another discussion.

MOISES

OCTOBER 3 2003 @ 12:27 PM

I'm with you Jester. The design always have a 70% of importance when developing an app. And I feel a bit disappointed about the new "Designer features" in this release.
- Ok, they fixed the "image shifting" problem (that's not a feature, it's a bug fix).
- They included a polystar (wow, I can't even imagine my life now before that tool, sarcastic)
- They included Effects (very few people will use them because of the file size they generate)
- They included Anti-alias text (at last we could use fonts with small size apart from pixel fonts or _sans)
Anything I left out?
I would like a tool like Swift3d embed (even not quite powerful) in the Flash IDE.
A real style manager, not the color swatches.
And I would like to justify my Dynamic textfields without using CSS.
And I think the most important thing, no limits for the stage size (have you ever had a very high MClip to use in the scrollPanel an can't edit it?

ZEH

OCTOBER 3 2003 @ 01:23 PM

GOSH, Oscar! I have written a similar article comparing "the Flash I knew" with what it's becoming (Visual Studio)... I'll publish it as soon as I put my conclusions together. Good to know I'm not the only one feeling it... and I don't like it.

JESTERXL

OCTOBER 3 2003 @ 01:45 PM

Moises, as I said without getting myself in trouble because there are certain things NDA wise I'm not allowed to talk about, but from what I know, Macromedia has no intentions, currently, to innovate or expand on any features that add design power to Flash, period.

Your comments about the improvements are so dead on. However, I have no clue what the movitation behind Timeline Effects were (maybe to steal the market from Swish... :: shrugs ::), but regardless, the only people who will innovate Flash's design side anymore will be... designers.

As far as your huge movie clip issue, do this since I've had to work with 4x2 1024x768 monitor setups, and know your pain:
- put the movie clip on the stage
- right click and edit in place
- if you can't scroll far enough to the right, go back to the stage
- move the movie clip very far left
- right click and edit in place again

That should help!

JESTERXL

OCTOBER 3 2003 @ 01:47 PM

And, it must be added, I'm not were I am at because I 100% want to be. Granted, there has always been a part of me that's wanted to program, but I never want to be like Peter Hall or Branden Hall; I just want their good & talented qualities, but still want to be an artist.

I think, like Oscar & Zeh mentioned, I'm here 60% because I have to be, not because I want to be.

MOISES

OCTOBER 3 2003 @ 02:09 PM

Same here Jester. I had to learn programing as a job issue. I had to or I will be in the last vagon of web development. I know that there yet "pure designers" but you have to be real, and I mean REAL good designer to only rely in that field.
Mowadays, at least in Spain, they look for people who can work in both positions (deseloper) and it's really difficult to catch on with all the new technologies and software is appering everyday.
I remember those days when "slash" coding was our daily bread and you didn't have to code a lot because you relied in some php or asp (coded by a programmer) that made all the funcionality for you.

I'm not saying that I'm not happy that Flash is becoming a more developer program that a designer program as it used to be. I'm saying that Flash has evolved so much in the Developer way that I fell forgotten.

BTW, thanks for the tip Jester

ZEH

OCTOBER 3 2003 @ 06:19 PM

Yep Moises

My point now is: if I wanted to create applications, I'd be doing .NET. I was a VB 2.0/3.0 programmer 10 years ago and I can say it's 10x easier to code anything on it than to code anything on Flash. I hate the language (VB) nowadays, but then again there's C#.

There's much more to say, but I'll leave that to my little article. I'll publish it later tonight..

JESTERXL

OCTOBER 3 2003 @ 07:13 PM

Forgotten... hrm, now there's a phrase that partially describes it.

I sometimes feel like the web design arena, good design, media type stuff, not good usability, but true art is a lot like the film or TV industry. Your a celebrity. As a celeb, your not in the limelight forever. We had our time, and that time has passed. Good news is, if your good, you can come back even stronger than before. Just look at Madonna, Harrison Ford, or MacGuyver dude...

...there's hope yet!

OSCAR TRELLES

OCTOBER 3 2003 @ 08:17 PM

That's a thought that was coming to my mind while walking down Lexington avenue... art is art, even when it takes the form of things we apparently can use, they are ultimately art, and that is going to be around forever. Flash gave many web artists the means to express themselves beyond DHTML, and created a new wave that is almost silent nowadays, given Flash evolution forced toward transforming it into an application development platform.

That's not at all bad. I mean, evolution is a selective process, and it's cool that a platform we have been supporting for many years, is making it through a tough market; as a matter of fact, that's the reason we have jobs today.

Nevertheless, the path of Flash is no longer the path of artists. I hear people wishing Fireworks could mix with Flash and create the ultimate multimedia tool; although the idea kinda excites me, it's nonsense and will never ever happen! So what's left, just create new things, with the old tools. That's the creativity challenge.

DAVID MENDELS

OCTOBER 4 2003 @ 07:36 AM

Hi (from Macromedia)

Read this thread with interest.

One thing I want to add is the we added dramatic new extensibility in order to help serve this market. No, the polyline tool itself isn't a major innovation (I get the sarcasm) but what is that that people can create so many new tools so easily. Designers may not create them, but as they proliferate, they will use them. Have you looked at the extensions available here?

http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/extensions/

Most of them are designer oriented.

We do think that designers remain very important to Flash--that is one of the key reasons we invested in this infrastructure in the product (think how critical extensions have been to artists using Photoshop over the years).

Also, the team is ramping up planning for the next year or two and would love specific suggestions/requests. www.macromedia.com/go/wish PLease do submit ideas.
Regards,
David
Macromedia

JESTERXL

OCTOBER 4 2003 @ 07:48 AM

I think it's the culture that needs to change, not the product. That's not necessarely controllable, either. However, I'm all about improving Flash. It's nice to hear an official statement that Macromedia does care. Thanks for the suggestion!

AJ

OCTOBER 4 2003 @ 01:52 PM

I would say that Flash as a tool till Flash 5, had everything to offer for a designer (with all the vector/raster capabilites) and took the web motion graphics world to new limits, MX introduced video, which was the only thing missing from a designer's perspective. Flash is the best tool for designers & now has very little room for improvement from that angle.
The things lacking uptil now were from developers perspective, which Macromedia is trying add.

Still have to see wat all is left out for the next version, personally i think that FLash MX will still remain a good option as far as designers go for now.

OSCAR TRELLES

OCTOBER 6 2003 @ 04:12 PM

Aj, that's what I'm getting a lot from fellow designers and artists. They just don't see any reason to upgrade to Flash MX 2004, because Flash MX offers everything they need, and the new version does not introduce any real benefits for them. I think Macromedia expects to cover the gap with new customers coming from the distributed applications market.

PUNISHER999

OCTOBER 30 2003 @ 11:51 PM

I think like you. And I think to improve development-programing abilities is more important than design tools. I am saying same thing since Flash 3 :"it is a programer tool not a f.ing toy for things that jump, fly, fade etc. ." Not I am happy to see that my vision was true.

TONY MACDONELL

DECEMBER 1 2003 @ 01:01 PM

I think people's vision of what designers need is skewed. Everyone seems to think that designers need tools to do cool effects and make shapes.

THAT IS NOT IT!

Everyone underestimates them. All of these people wasting their time with the JSAPI creating effects extensions thinking that designers will use them are wrong:

Designers create effects from scratch. That is what makes them designers.

Anyways, I can tell you what is needed:

Macromedia is now introducing all of the new development paradigms. (Central, FLex). Both are developer focused.

Now the problem is that Flash's true strength over competeing technologies is that fact that the entire experience can be controlled. That is different than VB or delphi where you are locked into a component set.

So now that Flash tell us to use these new methodologies, it doesn't give our designers an effective avenue to take part. So:

Don't waste time with timeline effects. They are useless.

Instead,

Create a way to open an SWC Component in Fireworks. Have it expose all of the states off the component and allow the designer to skin it in place. Make sure that this interface is intuitive and not something that presents a component as a tree with dataproviders and absrtact classes. Instead, it focuses on allowing the designer to do what they need to do: Skin the component.

Make sure that envoirnment locks them into the rules set out by the developer in order for the component to work.

On top of that you could allow the designer to open a set of components like Halo. And allow them to design a theme in Fireworks (their tool)that they can save and reuse.

Oh wait!, You can create themes for the new components!

Oh wait!,have you tried doing it? Is it intuitive for a designer? No it isn't.

So, designers are a very important part of our workflow, because they make us stand apart from all of the other different types of software companies.

If you intorduce new paradigms, complete the circle. A huge percentage of the people that use Flash are designers. Way more then developers.

Anyone wonder why the new MX tools aren't selling? It's not because of DevNet. It's because most people that would buy it are designers that already have Flash MX.

OSCAR TRELLES

DECEMBER 2 2003 @ 10:25 PM

Tony, you are absolutely right. I wouldn't know if the people architecting Flash are indeed underestimating designers, but they clearly have little insight on the way designers work.

What you say about the so much evangelized Timeline Effects is true, their are completely worthless for designers. With every new project, I'm asked by my employer to create something completely unique, which makes it difficult to even re-use some of my own components and chunks of AS.

Designers create everything from scratch, and usually have to re-do their own work a number of times, to please their clients or employers. Designers need tools to allow them better control over the object they manipulate, rather than encapsulated 'time savers' that offer none or minuscule space for customization.

When I posted this item, we were getting started with Central and knew little about Flex. Today it is clear that Macromedia's agenda for 2004 is focused on making the whole line of Flash related tools and technologies appeal to application developers, thus placing designers in a non-preferential status, to say the least.

So far, it doesn't seem to be paying of. Traditionally, Flash is a tool oriented to designers, which makes them Macromedia's biggest group of clients, at least in the Flash line. Add to that the fact that, compared to F04, Flash MX already has everything a designer may want, given the current development of the Flash technology as a whole.

POZYCJONOWANIE

FEBRUARY 23 2007 @ 06:11 PM

Thanks for very interesting article.

POOP NOSE

MAY 19 2007 @ 04:16 PM

it does not but it doesn't not.