Flashalisious

I have not posted anything to the blog in a wile but I hope to change that really soon. I have been really busy with something that just came out of no where. I got a new gig! I am pretty excited to say that I have joined a team of developers at a company in Nashville, TN called RemarkableWit. Some exciting things are going to come out of this company and I am really looking forward to working with the guys over there. I would like to personally thank Marcus Whitney the company founder and owner for contacting me and giving me this great opportunity, so officially you are looking at the new senior Flex / Flash developer for RemarkableWit.

As many of you know I have been self employed and running my own company for a long time now and for me this is going to be a bit of a change but I really believe that this is going to be a good thing. Lets face it as freelance developers all we really want to do is develop. We love the freedom of our own thing but wearing the many hats of a business owner take a way a lot of time from the one true passion that we have. That would be developing projects and learning new technologies to use in the development process.

I want all my customers and future customers to know that I am still here. The difference is that I have a driving force of developers and project managers that will be there to allow me to do what I do best. Building rich internet applications and experiences that will blow away your clients and business partners.

I will keep all of you posted as the team of developers and I build some pretty amazing things over the next few months and thanks again to Marcus and RemarkableWit for allowing me to join the team.

About a week or so ago I launched the new Bluf web site. If you have not heard of this band Bluf you should really check them out. Bluf writes their own original music and the bottom line is ….. they know how to rock for sure!

The guys relied on there myspace page for a log time as for their web site, and still maintain a large following on that site. Now that the bad is looking ahead and there needs grew the felt that a flash based web site was the way to go. This gives them the ability to post there music, videos and also have a really interactive site.

On this site they wanted a look that stuck with the theme they had be using on there myspace page, but after getting to know the guys and seeing them play I felt they where edgier than that. I felt that it was important to take the new site a few steps further. Using a lot of distressed textures and elements I was able to design and implement the site in a way that was simple, unique to the Band, and also really show the fans who Bluf really is. From what I could tell the guys where really excited about the look of the new site and seamed to think that I totally nailed the look and feel they where wanting. Of course I had a little help from the guys. They supplied there logo, some pictures and the red tree element was all Bluf’s doing. The red tree and lighter white background was the starting point and as we moved forward it was clear what the site needed. Hop on over and check out the new Bluf Site and shoot the guys an email and let them know what you think. blufmusic.com

Read on to hear more about Bluf.

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Launched in August of 07 is the new Siren Studio Photography site. This was a great project for my development company to be a part of and believe it or not was my first project to use full browser flash. For you who don’t know you can design a site with flash in a way that the site will scale with the browser as you resize the window.

Kristina Krug of Siren Studio came straight out of the design industry years ago and is now a extremely talented photographer. We used really heigh quality images so the images will continue to look really good even if you are looking at the site on a 24 or 30 inch screen.

I was really proud to be a part of this project. To be associated with that type of talent is always a plus!
You should check out the site when you get a chance. There is plenty of images on her site and it really shows you a wide range of her work. Learn More about Kristina and the companies she has worked with on a regular bases on the next page.

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Welcome to the Wacky World of Jazz and Thelonious Moog. This group came to me about a month ago and supplied me with great illustration work by Wayno. The group wanted an updated site that they could incorporate mp3 samples and also some video. If you like cool wacky synth jazz you should check this one out.

This web site was the first on that I got to use the new Adobe CS3 Web Design Premium that I purchased. The integration between photoshop and Flash was great. I was able to design every page using Wayno’s illustration work in photoshop and then dump that right into flash for building the animations for the web site.

Here is a cool project that I finished up a few weeks ago. Country Artist John Adam Murph called me to do a site for him around the end of last year. He had some idea as to the look that he wanted for the site. Flash projects are cool but Flash isn’t always the best program for getting some animation effects that you want. Wile I was designing this smokey themed site I had the idea that I wanted some smoke to fill the page whenever a user clicked on a button that I set up. It is kind of hidden in the lower right hand section of the site. See if you can find it and click it to load some smoke to the stage. Click it again to make it go away.

What I did is create the effect in Adobe After Effects and exported the loop as a swf file. I am loading the swf as an external swf. The smoke swf is around 1MB in size so is it really just for fun and to add a little coolness to the project.

Let me know what you guys think.

When you go to the site look for the “Load Smoke” Button in the lower right corner. http://johnadammurph.com

So I have not posted here in a long time so I thought I would make a New Years resolution to post more to my blog. I would love to hear from any of you that my come across my posts. Feedback on my design work is always welcome.

This site that I just finished up was for a Youth girls ministry that just started up this year. The client wanted something geared toward Youth girls. It needed to be something Feminine but cool at the same time. I hope we achieved that. Have a look for yourself.

The project consisted of three different areas to create a site that helped the Ministry get the word out. You have the main Radiant Site located here. http://radiantwalk.com

Next we created a Flash eCard. This is a way for the sites users spread the word. It tells about the ministry and also allows users to tell a friend by filling out a form and emailing a link to the friend about the ecard. The ecard for Radiant Ministries is located here. http://radiantwalk.com/ecard

Finally we took the clients current myspace page and created a color scheme and theme that would match the look of the new web site. You can check out Radiant Ministries myspace page here.

This was a fun project that I got to work on last week. All you guys should check it out. You could win a new Chevy Silverado!

On this project I did 99% of it animating with actionscript only. You guys should really check out the Fuse Kit for actionscript animation if you have not already.

This was a project that I got to work on with Echo Music. Basically the animation on the intro to the site and the animation on the main home page was done by me. As always check out more of my stuff via my web site. http://mswallace.com

The link to the actual web site is dead now. I guess the Holiday is over so the site is over till another Thanksgiving comes around.

This was a great project that I got to work on for the Gospel Music
Channel in conjunction with DIRECTV. I was able to do three different
Flash animated cards showing the different styles of music that are
available. Really a fun project. Best part is I got to use some of the
new Flash 8 filters. Here are links to the three different cards. Even got to build in some flash video too.
buzzplant.com/gmc/ecard1
buzzplant.com/gmc/ecard2
buzzplant.com/gmc/ecard3

technorati tags:Flash, Gospel, Music, Channel, Animaion, Video

So I just finished up a project this week. It was for a new country singer / songwriter out of Nashville, TN.

Now, personally I am not a big country fan. Over all I think the site turned out great. In addition to designing the site I also designed the artist an eCard. This is a great flash based tool that the artist can use for spreading the word and also give the fans a way to pass around the music and buy merchandise from the artist as well, and if you look hard enough on this one you may find some free music.

Check out the site and the eCard at http://gregpopemusic.com

technorati tags:Country, Music, Singer, Songwriter, Greg, Pope, Flash, Animaion, Design, Matthew, Wallace

So I have not posted here is a long time it seams. I have been working really hard to start doing all my animation in flash or at least 90% of it using actionscript. The files are just so much smaller and more optimized animating this way. I am using a great resource for this called the Fuse Kit. you can learn all about it at http://www.mosessupposes.com/Fuse/

The flash animated ecard that I just finished using the Fuse kit is a production for the band SonicFoold. More about them at http://sonicflood.com.

Here is a link to the ecard so you can check it out. http://buzzplant.com/sonicflood/ecard2 and wile you are at it check out my web site for more great Flash stuff that I have done at http://mswallace.com