I just completed adding all of my posts from my previous blog at http://likesalmon.wordpress.com to this blog. I haven’t even read all of my original posts but I can tell you that there are some factual errors and naivete that I am not taking responsibility for. Use at your own risk, there is some stupid shit in there.
Flash is dumb?
My design/development education has taken me in some directions that I didn’t count on. For instance, that Flash phase? Never went anywhere. Seems to work for some people, but I lost interest like immediately. Do I regret that? Not really. Flash is useful in some instances (see kuler for an excellent example) but mostly its just a bunch of crap (see Flash scroll bars, user interfaces, and slideshows). Besides, most of the time the same things can be achieved with JavaScript.
I’m not a total hater. I appreciate that Flash opened up web design to designers who would not otherwise have embraced the web due to technical limitations. Like it or not, the common JavaScript versions of Flash-esque visual effects came after Flash had been doing it for a long time. And good visual design helps usability and makes the web a nicer place to hang out in.
The cool kids are NOT doing it
The final nail in the Flash coffin? None of the designers I look up to use it. Jason Santa Maria, Khoi Van, Andy Clarke, Cameron Moll – these guys make incredible things and none of them use Flash. And that pretty much does it for me.