Let the war begin..

um yeah cult war my brother’s band needed a website that was cool and i had to do a project in flash so this lovely little creation that was full of frustration came to be!

CVLT WAR

un-final final project :(

so this weekend I spent at least 20-30 hours in the EDS computer lab trying to figure this stuff out.  I have learned that I am really bad at tutorials, that sound quality will be lost unfortunately for my brother’s guitar talent, that I have SO MUCH more to learn before I go into the real world of web design.  and that I think I may rather be a painter!

my flash file plays along and i couldn’t figure out how to stop the scenes on a certain frame..my file is just riddled with errors & I don’t know why ..  I could’ve sworn all you have to do is put stop(342<aka frame # within the scene>); and it would stop on the 342nd frame.

Boo Flash!  I love it and hate it.  I am psyched about the animation and handmade feel of the website, but how much does that matter when it doesn’t even work?

Well you can see like the first few seconds

Using Buttons to link Scenes

of course this topic is proving impossible for my final project..which i am having so much technical difficulty with it’s way past the point of being funny.  here is an old homework assignment that i never got around to posting, in which we used buttons to navigate from scene to scene.

buttons!

Final Project Mood Board

Well I totally changed my mind about my final project..  which is quite normal for me.  I was asked to design a logo for my brother’s band in October, but I have been so busy with school I never had time.  Now he’s lucking out and getting a whole flash website!

I was inspired by the Hardcore scene, because that is the type of music his band (Cult War) plays, although they are a little more radio friendly?  Oh well, enjoy the black, red, skulls and stuff that doesn’t look familiar to my style/previous work

American Hardcore Inspiration

Do people still pick up change?

This week part of our homework was to create a 200 frame Flash animation that depicts a realistic falling motion.  I decided to show coins falling because they are basically circles and they have a nice, interesting motion.   Of course with tweening I couldn’t fill up 200 frames of JUST coins falling so for the ‘storyline’ part I added in someone picking up a quarter. (most) People ignore pennies and nickels, they wouldn’t pick them up.

Watch it here!

Finding Interactive Inspiration

To generate ideas for my final website I found a few sites designed with Flash that I admire and will attempt to emulate..if it is possible!

Site #1 :   NewYorkRestorationProject   NYRP.org

What I like- I am in love with the navigation on the homepage, the way the trees or flowers glide up as the list of items glide down, it doesn’t feel overdone and it doesn’t mess with the usability at all.  I like the circle side nav also, how the info slides out to the left and the image slightly dims.  It may move a little too fast though.

What I don’t like- I don’t like that the drop down menus with flowers continue onto the subpages, I think it’s a little too much.  Maybe if the flowers didn’t show up or if the motion was a little smoother it wouldn’t hurt my eyes so much.

Well, I basically don’t know how they did any of this at all, I am sure I can handle creating the graphics and creating the motions but I have not a clue of how those elements can be put together to make a website.

Site #2    a foreign portfolio site    Appear.dk

What I like- I like the sliding effect to look across the page at their different work, and how it will brighten if you are hovering, I think I could interpret this for the Recipient Profiles on my website.

Don’t like- I don’t really like their typography, I don’t know why I just don’t like the font that much, it’s simple but I don’t feel like it matches or is very easy to read for the web.

I still don’t know anything about making a Flash website.

Site # 3    FandangoFilm.dk

What I like-  I like the overall simplicity, how there is this empty room with the company’s name on a neon sign and the navigation makes a transparent screen fall down and then the information comes in kind of PowerPoint style.

Don’t like- that the navigation is tiny and hidden in the bottom right corner of the page.  I think that there could be some interactive motion within the room, I immediately explored it with the mouse but was a little upset when nothing moved or happened.  It’s pretty bare bones, but it’s also pretty.

This seems like it would be simpler to copy off of  but with a twist, and I still have no idea how I’d go about it.  But I know I could create a short animation in Flash of a transparent box falling.

Final Project Announcement

I have decided that for my final project I will create a spiffy new website with Flash for the Vic Kubu Long Blue Line Scholarship.  Vic Kubu was a stand out football player at my alma mater Manasquan High School who went on to be one of the most legendary high school football coaches in New Jersey.  During his career as a coach he started this scholarship fund to help student athletes go on to higher education and perhaps continued involvement in sports.   I want to do this because as a recipient of the scholarship I feel I should be giving back in whatever way I can, and because the website is pretty 1998 and the year is 2010.

I think the new website should feature up to date profiles on all of the recipients, a schedule of the benefits, information for students who wish to apply for the scholarship, and retain the important pages that are already a part of the site.

I hope this new website will encourage more people to support the Long Blue Line and will foster a better connection between those supporters and the recipients.