If I’m ever serious about applying for a design job, I’ll probably try for a more professional look (right?), but for now this is just some “serious practice” at making a portfolio. I’ve got thick skin and desire to do things right, so heap upon me your criticism!
Some anticipated remarks:
-Rollovers: I want to keep things simple, but perhaps some subtle rollovers on the nav buttons are better than none at all.
-Transitions: again, trying for a minimalist feel, but i do sense a need for something like this. Perhaps I’ll work this into a preloader for each individual page (though at <100kb each i doubt the pages need one)
Oh, and a quick question: for the news SWF (the first one you see when it loads) I’ve got 3 textboxes. “News”, the date, and the latest entry. The date and the text use the same Helvetica Ultralight font which I load in from an external library (during preload), yet the date tends to display in Times New Roman (or the default serif). Any idea why, of two dynamic textboxes using the same externally loaded font, only one would display it properly? (The notecard on the “work” page also fails to use the externally loaded font, displaying instead in hideous Times New Roman, grrr.)
What downsides are these? The original site was in fact CSS/HTML, and it looked great in my Firefox. Then I opened it up in Internet Explorer (might not have been the latest version) and it was unrecognizably hideous (i exaggerate, but not by much). With Flash, you’re guaranteed virtually universal browser compatibility, which given the superiority of my Flash experience compared with CSS/HTML, makes it no question for me.
Lack of search engine optimization, accessibility options, lack of general browser functionality (i.e. back / forward / bookmark) - these are some of the concerns. I’m a huge fan of Flash, but there are definitely downsides that should be taken into consideration.
[QUOTE=Anogar;2324318]Lack of search engine optimization, accessibility options, lack of general browser functionality (i.e. back / forward / bookmark) - these are some of the concerns. I’m a huge fan of Flash, but there are definitely downsides that should be taken into consideration.[/QUOTE]
I’m a big Flash fan too and I have to agree with Anogar that there is some considerations that need considering. Although, there is some pretty amazing solutions for browser-Flash integration.
SEO is a biggy, of course you can just put text pehind the .swf, that’s not something that is really supposed to be done. Also, not everyone has flash. iPhones and probably some other mobile media browsers (lol big words) can’t render flash yet.
Granted, IE sucks and flash works the same in both, I’d CSS / HTML it up, and learn to code it so that IE reads the site fine. IE8 is supposed to be a decent browser anyway so it might not be a problem in the future.
Good points made all around. I’ll definitely revisit the HTML/CSS version, though part of me wants to crazy-up the Flash version to make it worthwhile to stick with Flash. We’ll see. Thanks for the suggestions!
I’d say the primary disadvantage is search engines really. Unless you can generate a huge amount of traffic yourself, through on and offline advertising, a Flash site is never going to get any kind of ranking in google.
Second I would say the lack of browser functionality.
Who cares though, Flash is don
I find working in HTML/CSS so mind numbingly boring compared to Flash.
If you’re applying for a Flash job, then I’d say it’s imperative that you create a Flash portfolio to showcase your skills. For what it’s worth, I don’t pay much heed to all the Flash nay-sayers. It serves a purpose which is to display multimedia images and sounds across a wide range of platforms…and it does it extraordinarily well. People that visit Flash sites know what they’re about and the overwhelming majority aren’t going to get hung up about the lack of a back button. And SEO isn’t that big a deal - there’s a whole host of multi-national businesses out there that use Flash and yet they still appear in the Google top spot. It’s horses for courses, I say.
Anyhow…a few points about your site starting with the text. I’m not sure about the ultralight font as the letters appear to be far too close together with virtually no kerning between them. Words like officially and possession are pretty much impossible to read. I see what you mean about the disparity with the fonts but, because of the kerning issue, the date is a lot easier to read for me. I suspect it’s a linkage ID iin your script that’s causing the problem - hard to tell though without looking at some code.
The forward/back buttons aren’t too distinguishable unfortunately and, if you try to load the News section, the back button appears for a split second before vanishing again. You might need to think about what’s happening to the playhead with that particular movieclip as a few stop() actions might solve the problem. I’m not sure if using the buttons horizontally like that is a good thing or not - I sorta got confused whether I was looking at old news or new news, if that makes sense?
I’m not sure about the use of yellow as a font colour either. It tends to fade out particularly when it appears over the yellow of the sunset. For some reason, the Works element appeared at the top of the page so that it was obscuring your name in the background. Subsequent attempts to look at this section seemed okay though as it was better behaved and centred itself in the page. A volume button would be a welcome addition to this section - or maybe not kicking in with the light sabre video until the link has been clicked first.
[quote=glosrfc;2324351]If you’re applying for a Flash job, then I’d say it’s imperative that you create a Flash portfolio to showcase your skills. For what it’s worth, I don’t pay much heed to all the Flash nay-sayers. It serves a purpose which is to display multimedia images and sounds across a wide range of platforms…and it does it extraordinarily well. People that visit Flash sites know what they’re about and the overwhelming majority aren’t going to get hung up about the lack of a back button. And SEO isn’t that big a deal - there’s a whole host of multi-national businesses out there that use Flash and yet they still appear in the Google top spot. It’s horses for courses, I say.
Anyhow…a few points about your site starting with the text. I’m not sure about the ultralight font as the letters appear to be far too close together with virtually no kerning between them. Words like officially and possession are pretty much impossible to read. I see what you mean about the disparity with the fonts but, because of the kerning issue, the date is a lot easier to read for me. I suspect it’s a linkage ID iin your script that’s causing the problem - hard to tell though without looking at some code.
The forward/back buttons aren’t too distinguishable unfortunately and, if you try to load the News section, the back button appears for a split second before vanishing again. You might need to think about what’s happening to the playhead with that particular movieclip as a few stop() actions might solve the problem. I’m not sure if using the buttons horizontally like that is a good thing or not - I sorta got confused whether I was looking at old news or new news, if that makes sense?
I’m not sure about the use of yellow as a font colour either. It tends to fade out particularly when it appears over the yellow of the sunset. For some reason, the Works element appeared at the top of the page so that it was obscuring your name in the background. Subsequent attempts to look at this section seemed okay though as it was better behaved and centred itself in the page. A volume button would be a welcome addition to this section - or maybe not kicking in with the light sabre video until the link has been clicked first.
Anyway, hope that’s useful feedback.[/quote]
To be fair though, it’s soley because they are multinational businesses that that’s possible. They are going to generate a huge amount of traffic and land the top spot in google, SEO or not, they are ranked purely by the amount of traffic they are generating, and the amount of searches etc.
Whereas someone starting a Flash site, who isn’t a multinational business, is going to have a hell of a time getting his site ranked at all.
If it’s your portfolio though, why not use Flash, you’re going to rely on sending it to people, not just people finding it randomly.
[quote=glosrfc;2324351]Anyhow…a few points about your site starting with the text. I’m not sure about the ultralight font as the letters appear to be far too close together with virtually no kerning between them. Words like officially and possession are pretty much impossible to read. I see what you mean about the disparity with the fonts but, because of the kerning issue, the date is a lot easier to read for me. I suspect it’s a linkage ID iin your script that’s causing the problem - hard to tell though without looking at some code.
The forward/back buttons aren’t too distinguishable unfortunately and, if you try to load the News section, the back button appears for a split second before vanishing again. You might need to think about what’s happening to the playhead with that particular movieclip as a few stop() actions might solve the problem. I’m not sure if using the buttons horizontally like that is a good thing or not - I sorta got confused whether I was looking at old news or new news, if that makes sense?[/quote]
Very useful feedback indeed, so thank you. I added a pixel of letterSpacing and a bit more leading to this textbox, so the ultralight font should be easier to read. As for the date appearing in a default Serif being caused by a linkage ID in my script, what does this mean? There is no Actionscript regarding this textbox: in the properties panel I simply chose *Ultralight (as it’s from an external library) from the Font drop-down menu, same as I did with the textboxes that actually work.
I also redid the previous/next buttons. The typewriter keys were a vestige from one of the site’s older incarnations. I hope the new buttons (with labels!) clear up some confusion as the direction in time they’ll be sending the viewer. There should also be no more of the “next” button appearing for a split second before disappearing.
Next up will be addressing the Essays page. I agree that the yellow hyperlink color can be hard to read (since it’s directly on top of the sunset). And the ugly typewriter key buttons will have to go. Thanks again for the thoughtful responses!
A showcase can contain flash sites, it doesn’t necessarily have to BE a flash site. One of the biggest problems with a lot of sites pouring up recently is that they use the wrong technology for its purpose.
I mean, flash has it’s uses, no doubt. As you all pointed out it’s got a lot of strengths, but also a lot of weaknesses. I do feel pretty strongly about some sites that do not utilize flash strengths at all being a full browser full flash site anyway. I just don’t see it. It’s a total misuse of technology, and I don’t care what you say about conglomerates being ranked #1 with their full flash site. Css is the perfect pick for most of these sites, but they end up being flash just because people find it faster to create.
IF you do go ahead with a full flash site then you sort of owe it to yourself to at least showcase some of the upsides of flash. Not just make a static 3 page layout that does nothing but create additional load on your cpu and make it hard to print, copy text or google it.
I’ve not yet used external libraries, but I’m assuming the basic principle is that you have to embed fonts, etc in the same way. The main difference is that, as well as providing a linkage ID, you also have to enable Import for runtime sharing and provide a URL to the SWF containing the font. The linkage ID also has to match the ID used in this external SWF.
Incidentally, I always thought an embedded library font automatically places the * after the font name rather than before it.
Even though you’ve embedded the font symbol in your Library, you still have to ensure that each textfield will display the embedded fonts, either using Texfield.embedFonts = true; or by manually embedding any required characters using the Property Inspector.
