Flash Animations. I came across this site when I was browsing on google. This site has many small flash videos that teaches you on various topics from outerspace to water pollution to origami. The site itself is really simple and not eye catching at all, but the videos are pretty good. For example, this hurricane video I just saw uses an animation figure to explain what hurricane is while visuals such as maps also appear while he’s talking. I think that this provide an interesting way to teach a subject and it makes it easier to learn. People tend to remember visual items they see. This site is not as flashy and as colorful as the commercial sites. It is just simple text with simple background.

       Kbears is a cool educational flash website for kids that teaches about different subjects such as, dinosaurs, science, animals, geography, and music. The website uses cute animated bear characters for each subject. Each character has its own sound and look. For example, the science bear resembles Einstein, talks like him, and his name is Albert. Each subject has an engaging interactive learning environment. The user can click on different things and learn more about them. For example, in the Science World environment, if you click on the microscope, you get different items you can click and you see an enlargement of them, as if they were under a microscope. You also get more information about each of them.

               The website seems to be designed perfectly for children. The san serif fonts, the bright colors, the spaceship shape, and the talking bears are all very attractive to kids. I think the website is designed nicely in a way that encourages learning. All the animation and the colors create a very friendly environment that encourages the child to click on different things. While doing so the child gains knowledge about different subjects – anything from animals to geography. For example, in the farm environment the child can click on different animals and get more information about them, hear their sound, and look at different photos. He/she can also print the information.

               But the website is not perfect. Some of the pages are still under constructions. Also, in different environments, it seems like the designer didn’t think it all the way through. Different options have a totally different design, as if you left the website. For example, when you go to the farm environment and click on the dog. In the dog screen you have different options; if you click on the pictures you get an ugly html page. Also, the navigation is a bit confusing. For example, in the farm, after one clicks on some animal and gets to the animal page, the user can to go to the home page, but it’s hard to see the tiny icon on the top left page.

               I think the differences between a sales oriented website and an educational one depend on the websites themselves. There could be many differences, for example, if I compare this website to the Pepsi one. The Pepsi site has just its product, and not much interaction. But if I compare this site to the Got Milk? website, both have lots of interactions like mini games, and information about the subjects that are being taught (i.e the importance of drinking milk, or subjects such as science in this website). The main difference though is that an educational website will have more objective information and fun ways to learn it, especially if it is for kids, while a sales website will have subjective information regarding a brand or product.

So I am surfing the web the other day and I find this website. It’s pretty interesting, to people that like science anyway, and teaches you about DNA and other genetics related stuff in flash. While its not the most exquisite use of flash, I like how it uses flash to teach science in a fun way.

Check it out here.

Baruch’s Chemistry Lab Tutorial website is effective in teaching people about lab safety. It is divided into 6 sections: an introduction, exploring the lab, what to wear, safe lab practices, emergency scenarios, and a practice quiz. I like this website because I can jump around to different sections instead of watching all of the tutorials. I also have the option of skipping slides or replaying them. Another feature of this website is that I can read the text or listen to the audio. It’s a good idea to have the text because it’s easy to miss some of the things in the audio. The slides also have pop ups of important points. In addition, in the emergency scenarios section, I can click on objects in the virtual lab and in the what to wear section, I can pick out a person’s clothes. These interactions help make this educational site a little fun.

The design of the website is much simpler than a website that is trying to sell a product. It has simple shapes and is not cluttered. The color scheme mainly consists of yellow and orange, but it’s not too bright. I think these colors were used so that the tutorial is not as boring. Overall, there is nothing “wow” about this website, but it’s clear and easy to understand.

http://actonco2.direct.gov.uk/index.html

While browsing I found this interesting flash animation educating people in the UK about CO2 gases. It provides information on how to calculate one’s CO2 footprint and provides steps to help decrease climate change locally and globally. The interface poses a 3-dimensional image that looks as if the viewer were gazing through a fish eye lens. It shows a neighborhood  of houses composed of electrical appliances that contribute to global warming. There are options to calculate “your home”, “your appliances”, and “your travel”, each option  allows the user to enter his typical usage and the amount of CO2 that person is emitting to the atmosphere. It then shows simple ways to bring reform to the environment.  Overall the site is aesthetically pleasing and its easy to use interface allows access to just about anyone who has access to the internet.

I did however noticed some faults in the animation. The lower left corner shows a duck swimming in grass, or there isn’t much contrast between a pond and the grass beyond it.

I believe this website works well in informing the public of environmental issues occurring locally and perhaps even internationally due to the interest it can stimulate just by having people view the cartoon like world and realize the relation it has with the world we live in.

http://www.trydrugs.net/

It wasn’t easy to search for a flash website that “teaches” but I found this website where you get to learn about about different drugs and the best part was you get to experience the side effects of the drugs through the interactive flash interface without having to actually do the drugs. The layout is fairly simple. There is really bold typography as well as plain text. The supporting sounds for the drugs was relative to the interaction of the website. The sounds gave an easy but dazed out feeling similar to which one would go through while using drugs I presume.  For each drug there is unique flash animation and supporting images as well informative reading. The smoke from marijuana and the lines of coke were raw and in your face. The site is very successful in giving viewers a taste of the damaging side effects of drugs. I tried a couple of drugs and I felt the interaction worked well. I did get slightly annoyed because my mouse was scrolling all over the place but I suppose that the message the site was trying to teach is drugs can screw you over.

I personally have a unusually big interest in cars, so I’m often browsing through car sites. A while ago, I came across the new BMW website. It’s always changing. I’m well aware that this blog is supposed to be of a flash teaching site, and not on a flash site that sells. This site, not only sells, but it also guides you through all the aspects and business of BMW’s corporation. The site opens to a page with four options. Or rather, you can just sit there and stare at the beautiful flash background. Four options are self-explanatory. One cool thing about the main page is that the site would go to its “energy saving” mode when it’s not in use, and makes this cool “shut down” sound. Try it, leave the main page alone for a few, and it’ll turn to its energy-saving mode. When you click on BMW USA, which is what I would click to check out what’s in stock here or what types of cars there are, another window would open up. On this page, you’ll find a “Build Your Own” link on the bottom, and other options. All of these options each have its own purposes and teaches the customer steps to getting what they want or what they’re looking for. The colors are fresh, mainly blue and white. Also good to the eyes. The sounds vary. I particularly like the energy-saving sound, because that came out of nowhere. The flash images are cleverly spaced out and also, its timelines are all in harmony with one another. This is site is cool. Check it out.

This site (Ryuseinokizuna) is the official site for a Japanese drama I watched before. The thing that caught my attention was the meteor stars flying across the page when you open it against the whole starry scenery.  Although this site is in japanese, I can tell that it has something to do with the whole sky background and stars. I think what makes this site works is the choices of colors and uses of animation. It uses a dark bluish background against light color type like yellow, white, orange, making it the words easy to read. I don’t really like the few white boxes at the bottom of the page. I think it doesn’t connect with the other elements of the page. Another part of this site that caught my attention is the transparency outline of the three characters. This transparency makes it blend in with the background also allowing the stars in the back to be seen.

The site for L’Oreal Paris includes many interesting flash applications which help you to choose the right makeup, hairstyle, and even hair color. I clicked on the one for hair coloring. The application was meant to help you find the right, or dream, shade of color for your hair. I personally color my hair and also use the hair dyes from L’Oreal so I thought this one might be useful to me. Going through the ‘Find Your Shade’ application there were many instances where they asked questions about your hair and what type of color you may want. So it seemed like I was doing a survey. Clicking through the whole application and ending up in the end with the shade that they called my ‘dream shade.’ After that was done I was able to click into other applications which actually gave tips on what to do to help improve your hair color or what you can do to make coloring your hair a better experience. Through flash, the site gave useful tips on what to do to prepare your hair so that it would be in a better condition to color it and not be as damaging. Even though this site is meant for trying to introduce their products to consumers but many of the things that they teach you about hair coloring don’t necessarily try to sell you one of their prodcuts. Through the tips that are given from the flash applications you can learn a lot about coloring your hair. The flash was done very well throughout L’Oreal’s website. There were very nice images and everything seemed to go together in a fashionable way. Clicking through the site was a very smooth experience and they always had a screen pop up when you would click on a button. This screen would show at what percentage the page is up to until the whole page is loaded successfully. I specifically like it when websites have that feature because I think its a creative idea and also it allows you to know how much more time you have to wait before your page fully loads. I also liked the drop-down menu feature the website has. Whenever you roll over the tabs on the top of the website a drop-down menu will appear and the rest of the site will have a tinted effect and the colors will appear to have a grey film covering them.

This website is so advanced the flash on this website is amazing. It has animations for amost every click and has different backgrounds forming on different sections with them digitally forming. This website looks like a video game. Everything opens as if each page is a different world. Images and text boxes appear as you hoover from different links within the website.

I chose this website because it is very interactive but clean. The company Duggal is actually located on 23rd street on your way btwn 5th and 6th ave. I have always admired their work and images, but when I visited the site I appreciated how clean but informative their site was. If you take a look at the site notice how their images an gallery become a part of the background. I thought this was a very creative way to present the style of the company, while creatively using the space they had to work with.

My only issue with this otherwise perfect website is the color scheme when you click for information. Some sections present a light grey background which clashes with the background and the images. But other than that it is perfect.

Recently, I bought a Nintendo GameBoy and some games I used to play as a child. One of the games I purchased was an all time favorite of mine, Tetris. I bought it with the intention to play when ever I wanted but lately my little sister has been using it more than I do. I just decided one to day to check out the website www.tetris.com and was amazed by the design. The first thing that really captured me though was the music. It is a modern upbeat remix to the original track that was on the game. I like this one much more. All of the tabs are easily accessible and hi-light whenever the mouse scrolls over it. The colors of the website really pop and makes it attractive to anyone’s eyes.

“It is typically listed as one of the top 5 video games of all time in magazine and Internet panels every year as much for its influence as for its gameplay,” says Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov. I went to play the online version and was easily addicted trying to beat my high score every time. The little boy character was so cute as he was giving directions in the tutorial. I can’t believe that this game was created since 1987, so many years and it still remains a favorite for a great number of people.

For anyone who is in the advertising world, the words Leo Burnett should ring a bell. Leo Burnett is one of the leading advertising agencies in the US. As a frequent visitor to site (for maybe, a full-time job? =D), picking this site was a no brainer.

One of Leo Burnett’s mottos is “Big ideas come out of big pencils.” and that is where the basis of their homepage begins. You essentially navigate with a big pencil that draws as you swing your mouse over the various links. This aspect makes the site interactive as well fits with their overall theme. Another fun aspect of the site are the floating apples that contain quotes inspirational quotes by Leo Burnett. Although I am not too sure why they specifically use apples as the target for these quotes. My favorite one is,

“A real idea has a power of it’s own and a life of it’s own.”

Probably the one thing I’m not too crazy about is the music playing as you navigate through the site. It’s very carnival-ish not really fitting with the overall design. Also, if you listen long enough it gets almost creepy with a guy (Leo Burnett??) saying “Lalala, I’m waiting.”.

Overall, I think the Leo Burnett site really showcases Leo Burnett’s stature and prestige as one of America’s leading advertising agencies. By having an equally as creative yet simple flash designed site makes Leo Burnett stand out from the rest.

So I was doing a bit of research as to where I want to pursue a career when I graduate and stumbled across this website. I am a marketing major, so an Ad Agency would be a great place to start my career. I found this company called 360i, which is a digital marketing firm that has done campaigns for companies like Marvel Comics, MTV, and NBC Universal. Their website has such a great use of flash and I think it is simply awesome. The concept of having a circle and being able to click on different parts of it really makes sense for a company called 360i since a circle has 360 degrees. Check out the site here.

Got Milk? is an animated website that promotes the consumption of milk by small interactive games. I like the site’s design; it has a very clean look. I love the animation. It looks like 3D animated cartoons. The site is very interactive. The games are very nicely designed and are consistent with the website theme. It doesn’t feel like it is a game but rather like the user is still surfing the website. The thing that got my attention most is the nice combination of sketch, 3D cartoons, and animation. I think the design is really good.  It is sophisticated yet “young”.

However, I think the games should include more instructions, because the user has to guess what to do and what to press. The Recipe gallery is a little bit slow and a bit confusing; I think the next and previous buttons should be more noticeable.

Overall, I think it is a really good website, and it promote milk in a nice, interactive way. The message doesn’t get lost in the games.

I found this website by chance and basically it’s an informative website made by Honda about their “Green Machines.” The website itself is in Japanese but you don’t really need to know the language in order to navigate it, at least the mini game you get at the beginning. When you play the game you get a choice of different characters that include a snowman and a dog. Once you choose a character (you are free to change it if you like) you use the arrow keys to move left, right, and jump. Along the way you encounter little star-like objects that, when hit, shows you an image that concerns their automobiles or characters from the Peanut gang. 

I actually liked this site even though I can’t read a word of it, and I sort of enjoyed the game even though it could have used a lot more features and more probably be a bit more challenging. The course in the game is green and I thought that it was very nicely done, but it’s still very plain. Hope some of you guys can read it.

When it comes to drinking coke, I always prefer to drink Pepsi over Coca Cola. I think Pepsi tasted crispier than Coca Cola. Anyway, this is just my opinion. But, I like to introduce everyone to the Pepsi’s website because it uses many flash animations. Especially, when you first enter the website, you will notice that there are many flashing icons moving at once to entertain you while the website is loading. The website itself also had its own theme of websites, which they use cover flow with flashing icons (in the background) to stand out for each theme to promote what are some of the things the company is trying to achieve or accomplished.

Overall, I enjoy going to the website and listening to the music in the background gave me the groove to drink Pepsi. The ocean blue color was a great choice; the shadow was used properly when you wanted to click on the button for each category, and fonts were readable with comfort with gradient color from light to dark for each button but when you point to the button, it has a lighten effect to make the button brighter. I hope we will be able to learn some of this flash animation in class.