FLASH FORWARD

On his website, French designer Mathieu Badimon presents new possibilities for designing in Flash—new now, but these will shortly be les applications du jour. Visit and play with his fascinating and entertaining array of lab experiments to see what’s in store. Liquid form and gravity ball are especially amazing to me, but all of Badimon’s designs demonstrate what can be achieved with Flash and intense scripting.

The simplicity of the site’s appearance certainly belies the complexity behind it. Badimon’s selection of simple shapes and colors are just right, and he combines them expertly to create a game board of sorts, which lends an extra element of play to this exercise. The navigation tabs allow the user to control the orientation of both the game board and the activity within each square, offering all sorts of 3-D angles and a near endless assortment of views. Navigation is easy, even for a non-NetGen user like me. It occurs to me that maybe the NetGen user would find Badimon’s activities to be a little ho-hum, but I remember when telephones were rented from the phone company, and so perhaps I have a different threshold for surprise.

Speaking of surprise, there is a German website for an ad campaign about horses that is well worth checking out, if you are at all interested in innovative uses of Flash Video. The video is dramatic, captivating, and brings the horses up close and personal, as they snort and cavort through diverse landscapes. (Actually, they gallop, but I like to rhyme). Anyway, the site displays in full picture, with the Flash navigation bar remaining wisely hidden throughout the video. I admit, however, to worriedly seeking navigation while the film ran by clicking near the progress bar. "Good move," I thought, as the navigation appeared. Next thought: "Am I old? Does the need to see website navigation right away place me squarely within an older generation of less confident users?" Could be—or perhaps I’m just a control freak. (I think I'll go with that)! In any case, I imagine that many users, especially younger ones, would simply wait for the navigation bar to appear, and it does. So, when you enter this site, remember that there is no need to hunt for navigation. It's coming. Just relax and enjoy this fine work.

Oh yes, the link to the site. It's also coming. Here it is.