Expanding Blurring Titles

The effect where titles spread out and then blur away to nothing has become a popular way to make 'plain old text' look more interesting. It's really not that complex: What we do is 'expand' the text by animating the tracking (the space between the letters).

Mac Design Magazine (2005). Design>Multimedia>Video>Typography

Experiment in Sound

When you think about sound in regard to the internet, what comes to mind? Dutch design firm LUST explores the sound of the internet with this original project.

AIGA (2005). Design>Web Design>Multimedia>Audio

Exploring Technical Communication

Exploring Technical Communication is a 30-minute documentary video introducing the profession. It consists of interviews with faculty and students in the University of Washington's Department of Technical Communication and with professionals in the STC.

Garrett, Mick, Paul Foy, Robert Frantzen, Charlie Selk and Erik Willis. EServer (2002). Resources>Multimedia>Video>Documentaries

Exporting to QuickTime or for use with iDVD

You have this great project that you've just finished, and you need to bring it into another program, display it on your web site, or turn it in on CD or DVD. To do this, you will need to export your movie. iMovie has several 'built-in' configurations that take much of the guesswork out of compressing your video for optimal playback on one of those media types. I often find, however, that the standard choices are not quite what I want or need. This is when the Expert options come into play.

Iowa State University (2003). Design>Multimedia>Video>DVD

Fast-Track Your Flash Site

Many Websites that use Flash could be optimized to load much more quickly than they currently do. By breaking up one large .swf into multiple smaller .swf files, you can decrease the time it takes your site to load, while at the same time making the site easier to manage. This article will look at how to break your Website into multiple .swf files, and discuss why it's a good idea.

Angeletti, Mark. Search-This (2004). Design>Web Design>Multimedia>Flash

Final Cut Professional

An introduction to using Final Cut Professional 4.0 for multimedia video production.

Eisenbraun, Michael and Amanda Metz Bemer. Studio for New Media (2004). Presentations>Multimedia>Video>Final Cut Pro

Five Reasons to Stream

Many organizations are hesitant to deploy streaming media on their sites due to the fact they don’t want to deal with the performance or support issues that may crop up. But those downsides need to be weighed against the true business benefits that accrue from streaming media deployments. In a recent primer, Adobe offered these top five business benefits of streaming media.

Cummings, Joanne. Publish (2004). Design>Web Design>Streaming>Multimedia

Flash - To Use Or No To Use?

Out there in the WWW there are thousands sites using flash for their needs. But the majority sites are not in this list. Let's summarize some facts about flash usage on YOUR web site. After that it's you will have to decide: to use or not to use.

Lazarenko, Oleg. Flash DJS (2004). Design>Web Design>Multimedia>Flash

Flash Access: Unclear on the Concept

In Christian theology, it doesn’t matter exactly when you accept Jesus Christ as your personal saviour. As long as you do it before you croak and ask forgiveness for your sins, you’re in like Flynn. This, apparently, is the Macromedia philosophy when it comes to accessibility. The company’s flagship product, Flash, is intrinsically inaccessible to anyone who cannot see properly and is very often inaccessible to a deaf or hard-of-hearing person. It’s also completely inaccessible on slow computers or any machine that lacks the Flash plug-in, rendering those viewers more functionally disabled than they actually are.

Clark, Joe. List Apart, A (2001). Design>Accessibility>Multimedia

The Flash Aesthetic

Scaling, 2-D style, cycle-free motion, and heavy strokes. They’re not just web design trends any more. Join Olson on a cultural scavenger hunt as he tracks the ways Flash design techniques have crept into other media.

Olson, Ross. List Apart, A (2001). Design>Multimedia>Web Design>Flash

Flash Applications

The reason to use Macromedia Flash is usually to provide a solution or to satisfy the need of the Web site owner. Typically, Flash is used to create a company image through animations and special effects in the splash page or even throughout the site, establish better user understanding through demonstrations and simulated processes, and/or entertain or educate through animated cartoons and games.

Kurtus, Ron. School for Champions (2002). Design>Web Design>Multimedia>Flash

Flash Embedding Cage Match

'How can you best embed Flash content?' It should be a simple question, but is likely to evoke a lot of different opinions and arguments, as each of the many available embedding techniques have their own pros and cons. In this article, I will look into the complexities and subtleties of embedding Flash content and examine the most popular embedding methods to see how good they really are.

van der Sluis, Bobby. List Apart, A (2007). Design>Web Design>Multimedia>Flash

Flash MX: Clarifying the Concept

The new Flash MX authoring environment and the equally new Flash Player 6 solve a few accessibility problems. Screen reader compatibility is the first Macromedia access milestone. Screen readers—which, by the way, are not called “voice browsers” or “text readers”—are software that reads web pages, and anything else on your computer, out loud. (I’d show you a picture, but apart from a few uninteresting configuration screens, these programs have no overt visible form.)

Clark, Joe. List Apart, A (2002). Design>Multimedia>Web Design>Flash

Flash MX: Control Projector Files with the fsCommand

Flash provides a way to create a projector file—a self-executable application that doesn’t require the Flash player.

Berg, Debbie. WebDeb (2003). Design>Multimedia>Interactive>Flash

Flash MX: Moving Toward Accessible Rich Media

Macromedia released Flash MX in mid-March of 2002, including enhancements to the player and the authoring tool to improve accessibility for people with disabilities. Admittedly, some areas like screen reader access couldn’t possibly get any worse than they were in previous versions of the player: popular screen readers such as JAWS and Window-Eyes ignored Flash content completely. Other features, such as the ability to add captions (which has been available since Flash 5), benefit from improvements Macromedia made to the Flash architecture in this release. The changes have also automatically improved access to existing Flash content when viewed in the Flash Player 6, but to maximize Flash accessibility for your users you’ll need to publish content from Flash MX.

Kirkpatrick, Andrew. List Apart, A (2002). Design>Accessibility>Multimedia

Flash MX: The Sound Object

Use the Sound Object to control sounds that are stored in the Flash Library as well as load sounds that reside outside the Flash movie. Controlling sounds includes starting and stopping the sound, adjusting the volume or the right and left balance while a sound is playing.

Berg, Debbie. WebDeb (2003). Design>Web Design>Multimedia>Flash

Flash Player 9: Bringing HD Flash Video to the Web

Moving from High Definition (HD) to FLV means a loss of quality. It is similar to moving a Photoshop high-resolution TIFF image to the JPG format--the loss in quality can't be avoided.

Green, Tom. Digital Web Magazine (2007). Design>Web Design>Multimedia>Video

Flash Transitions

Transitions are a very popular technique used in Flash, and they're typically used to let your audience know that a change in content or scenery is coming. They're usually displayed using fading effects and dissolves, and there are two ways to implement this type of effect: an alpha tween and a brightness tween. Let's take a look at both of these techniques.

Berg, Debbie. WebDeb (2002). Design>Web Design>Multimedia>Flash

Flash Usability

Those succeeding with Flash usually apply it as an element and mix it with other technologies or images such as streaming audio and video, GIF, JPG, DHTML, and CGI to name a few. Determine what elements you need on your site and study the strengths and weaknesses of each technology to determine which option would work best for each element. You're in good shape if you can use Flash without sacrificing accessibility, readability, navigability, usability, searchability, and ability to update.

Evans, Meryl K. Digital Web Magazine (2002). Design>Accessibility>Multimedia>Web Design

Flash Video Learner's Guide

This guide provides an introduction to Flash Video, including information on how to create and publish Flash Video.

Adobe (2004). Design>Multimedia>Streaming>Flash

Flash: 99% Bad

Although multimedia has its role on the Web, current Flash technology tends to discourage usability for three reasons: it makes bad design more likely, it breaks with the Web's fundamental interaction style, and it consumes resources that would be better spent enhancing a site's core value.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2000). Design>Web Design>Multimedia>Flash

Flash: Create a Preloader

Flash movies stream, so when the Flash movie contains several frames or scenes, the movie should be preloaded so that it will play back smoothly. Let's set up the animation that will play while the main movie (the presentation from a previous lesson) is loading behind the scenes. We'll create a movie clip for the preloader animation.

Berg, Debbie. WebDeb (2002). Design>Web Design>Multimedia>Flash

Flash: The LoadMovie Action

Want to load one movie at a time into a main movie? With Flash MX, you can load a SWF or JPEG file into the Flash Player while the original movie is playing. The loadMovie action lets you display several movies at once and switch between movies without loading another HTML document or a separate Flash movie.

Berg, Debbie. WebDeb (2003). Design>Web Design>Multimedia>Flash

FlashHelp: The Ideal Online Help Format for Web Applications

As the web transitions from a relatively static, information-oriented environment to a highly interactive, task-oriented environment, web developers must provide on-demand user assistance to ensure the usability of their applications.

Sibley, Jake. Adobe (2004). Articles>Documentation>Multimedia>Flash

Foley on a Shoestring

The post-production process known as 'Foley' refers to the art of recording 'live' sync sound effects to picture. It is akin to looping the dialogue, but instead of recording the actors performing their lines while watching themselves on screen--skilled craftspeople known as 'Foley artists' will walk, run, and act out any sync sound effects to match what the actor is seen (or implied) doing in the picture.

Ginsburg, Fred. Equipment Emporium (2006). Articles>Multimedia>Editing>Audio