Ideas for Flash in Blog Design (& a Competition)
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Flash isn’t something you often see in use on a blog (aside from the WP-Cumulus tag cloud plugin). The majority of our animations and other effects tend to be done with JavaScript.
When Trenty Fox of Flashmint.com got in touch with me a few days offering to give away some of their products in a competition (Which we are doing at the end of this post!), my initial reaction was that Flash wasn’t a big thing for bloggers though.
What changed my mind was when I rolled over the Christmas logo on their site (Not going to tell you what happens, just go try it out, it’s cool!). It’s a small touch, but it made a big difference for me.
With this post, I’m going to fire out some other ideas for how using Flash in small doses could add to your blog. Let me know what you think, or where you use it!
Ideas for Flash In a Blog
The images here all link to the files on Flash Mint, just click to see them.
A Countdown Timer
Do you blog about upcoming releases? Whether it’s a new movie or Apple’s next tech conference, an animated countdown is a useful addition to your post, easy to add, and something other bloggers in your niche probably don’t have.
That said, do turn off any ticking sound effects…
Your Own Video Player
Video sharing sites like YouTube and Vimeo are great, but if you’d prefer not to have their branding on your videos, you can use your own video player instead.
Headline Tickers
An animated ticker can be a great way of scrolling through your headlines in a small space. You could even pull in an external RSS feed of news updates for your niche.
The screenshot above shows 3 different variations of tickers, but there are hundreds out there. There’s bound to be one to match your design!
Podcast Audio Players
Again, there are a lot of mp3 playing scripts out there. They can range from very minimal with only the essential controls, to full-featured players like the one pictured above.
Advanced Photo Galleries
Flash can be used to make some incredible photo gallery viewers. The one above is animated in 3D and looks extremely sleek. It’s a great way of showing off a large set of photos.
Novelty Navigation
The links in the screenshot above function exactly like the Mac Dock. The icons enlarge as you mouse over them, making it a very cool way to scroll across (They also have tooltips that open up to give a full description).
Your primary navigation isn’t something you want to risk this on, but it could work well for a portfolio of your work.
Image Panning
Image panning is a trick often used in clothes shopping sites to let you view a product in detail, without sending you a massive image which fills your whole screen. You just drag the cursor over the picture to scroll around the different parts.
For bloggers, the use is the exact same as for those shopping sites. Let your readers see full quality images easily, even if they’re on small monitors.
Competition – Win Flash Files!
Flashmint.com have kindly offered to giveaway files of your choosing to 3 winners here.
Let’s try to make this useful for each other. To join in the competition, just check out their site and leave a comment here with a link to whatever your favorite file is.
In a week’s time, I’ll pick out the 3 best finds and the winners get to keep them! (Only stipulation is that the max value per file is $100). Also, you’re welcome to choose any of their full Flash templates, or even WordPress templates!
Hopefully we’ll end up with a list of ideas for great Flash usage!
So what are you waiting for? Let’s go find some great scripts! Or is Flash just for for you? I’d love to hear your thoughts on Flash vs. JavaScript in the comments!
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This is a really nice for photos!
http://www.flashmint.com/show-template-2678.html
Nice find, that is pretty awesome! :D (minus the creepy music! xD )
http://www.flashmint.com/show-template-2470.html
http://www.flashmint.com/show-template-2723.html
http://www.flashmint.com/show-template-2582.html
It’s awesome with your own video player!
I’d always use javascript for animation, and i can’t see why you would use flash unless you need more advanced animations.
http://www.flashmint.com/show-template-2570.html
Multimedia Slideshow
My favourite is this mp3-player; seems that it will be really useful in language-related posts:
http://www.flashmint.com/show-template-2545.html
They have quite a bit of stuff there that I really like. But since I have to choose, it’s got to be:
http://www.flashmint.com/show-template-2582.html
That’s got to be the sharpest looking vid player I’ve seen.
abound resources! this is a good share.:)
http://www.flashmint.com/show-template-2582.html
This is pretty cool! I love the header and the background, wonderful and unique theme!
http://www.flashmint.com/show-template-2526.html
Regards,
Lee
I love the design of this template, it is quite stylish and looks unique: http://www.flashmint.com/show-template-2736.html
Tinh
This one is pretty cool.
http://www.flashmint.com/show-template-2341.html
I don’t know why, but I didn’t enjoy Flash, it’s really terrible for me ;) but sometimes we need to deal with it :)
Yup, you are surely right, having flash on daily blog sounds like a crazy idea for bloggers, as usually flash files can be pretty big and there are always possibilities that those are not supported within users browser/system.
But web 2.0 means interactivity between users and sites, and flash can in that case can play a big role, especially when you get recommendation for site like flashmint has, with all those really cool and useful components.
Anyway, mine pick would surely be flash player
http://www.flashmint.com/show-template-2582.html
because, as you’ve said, having your own players stands you out from the embedders.
Cheers!
My pick has to be the flash player because, as has already been noted, being able to stand out is hugely important. That said, there are a number of interestingly tantalizing components there that could be very useful in attracting and keeping visitor’s attention.
My pick:
http://www.flashmint.com/show-template-2582.html
Possibly a little late to the party, but I’d love to get my hands on http://www.flashmint.com/show-template-2564.html.
Thanks everyone for taking part, yous found some awesome files! :)
The 3 winners are:
Jame with the image viewer: http://www.flashmint.com/show-template-2678.html
Slavik for finding a really cool alternative mp3 player: http://www.flashmint.com/show-template-2545.html
And because so many of you loved the video player, I just picked one person who mentioned it at random! Congrats Mike! :) (And sorry to everyone else who picked the same file, could only choose one person though :( )
We’ll have more competitions again soon, thanks everyone who took part! :)
This one is the best
http://www.flashmint.com/show-template-2341.html
Thanks for your advice. I had done a few pure flash sites in year 2005 and 2006 but I stopped doing those after I was familiar with CMS because I thought CMS is very easy to handle. Anyway, I like to read your post.
I think you chose the better route to be honest. Flash can add a lot to a webpage, but even the loading times for a lot of Flash sites are really offputting. :(
This one is pretty cool.
i really like all the ideas but the flash gallery idea was the top one and i will try to implement this in my blog.
With Google Caffeine coming up, is that really a good idea? Flash in your web page?
I love the animations on this one!
http://www.flashmint.com/show-template-2553.html
Hopefully we will begin to see more of this kind of thing with HTML5 in the coming months. I don’t mind flash but really HTML5 is a better format, and an open standard, and it will be interesting to see where things go!
Does a blog really need Flash? It reduces the loading speed and blog for content for some thing to know it doesn’t to attract traffic on fly. Blog generally has fixed visitor if it really offers good content.
This one is fantastic.
http://www.flashmint.com/show-template-2736.html
Use of flash in blog design, this idea is pretty cool and inovative. thanks for posting.
Really nice Ideas thanks for share this ideas.
You are surely right, having flash on daily blog sounds like a crazy idea for blogger, as usually flash files can be pretty big and there are always possibilities that those are not supported within users
We have a wealth of experience in creating high quality prints for the home and retail market and let me know.
thanks
Hi,
when i saw a countdown timer on the modern warfare 2 official website.. i just wanted one like that so bad.
The one you mentioned shall do the trick, real handy ..
Its a pity it isint free :(
As usually flash files can be pretty big and there are always possibilities that those are not supported within users
Lol, I really don’t know whether this competition is still on or not. Is it still open?
Flash is really a cool app specially if its on your web site. But if your target audience are the majority, I don’t think that its a cool idea. Most of the readers may still use old PCs that would work slow if there is flash on the web site.
There’s no doubt. Flash is really a cool app specially if its on your web site. But if your target audience are the majority, I don’t think that its a good idea. Most of the readers may still use old PCs that would work slow if there is flash on the web site.
Flash makes a website or a blog becomes more beautiful. I really like using flash for my blogs. Thank you for the information.
Blog or website that uses flash looks really cool. I wanted to create a website with flash. thank you for this information.
Thank you Michael. Flash work for the good ideas..
Thanks for these excellent flash designs. I liked the animations very much. It’s really a very creative and excellent work. Hope to see more innovative work from you in future.
Fantastic site I shall bookmark it and return later.
That is a good way to use flash with good design. For blog, it will be impressive.
Good thing I found you!! Thank you so much
I love Flash and you brought some good ways of using it in blog. But in case when you need some simple animation for blog it’s easier to go with JavaScript.
remarkable use of flash, got a chance to learn a lot !!
This is a great jumping off point for anyone looking to maintain or create a site in 2011 that wants to stay realevent. nice share and a really good starting point for any new designer
Would you be serious about exchanging hyperlinks?
abound resources! this is a good share.:)
my friend , thiis very good