Flash has had a hard time of late. Aside from the well documented and discussed issues concerning accessibility, search engine visibility and painfully long load times, the mighty Steve Jobs has now decreed that the future of the web should not include Flash. But in the right hands, Flash can be the catalyst for some inspiring, and in some cases truly astounding, web sites.
What follows is a roundup of 25 sites that demonstrate why Flash, as a technology, still has a lot to offer…
Grimm Gallun Holtappels
Record Tripping
Tracy Chapman
ProgressiveRed
Toyota iQ – Virtual Test Drive
Sponsafier
Nike Air Troupe
yodabaz
ozan akoglu
Immersive Garden
TAUADESIGN
Verbatim Championship
Sounds of Hamburg
Jordan: History of Flight
Honda: Blue Skies for Our Children
Wonderwall
T2
AgencyNet 2.0
Grow Interactive
Nick Jones
Jonathan Yuen
Red Interactive Agency
I Make My Case
The Economist: Thinking Space
Mr A 4.0
Conclusion
The way many of these sites seamlessly combine images, animation, video, sound and text makes for some memorable user experiences. The flexibility of Flash authoring, combined with the power of Actionscript, also make it possible to create innovative user interfaces, the likes of which would either be very difficult or impossible to achieve using HTML and Javascript.
Studios such as group94, North Kingdom and Big Spaceship continue to produce Flash content that sets a benchmark for others to follow, and sites such as TheFWA demonstrate on a daily basis the fact that Flash continues to be a catalyst for some great, inspiring websites.
