Adobe Flash is software which enables websites to be richly animated and interactive (although AJAX is beginning to threatens its’ dominance). Flash creates a film which you embed within a webpage – it provides almost limitless possibility where the only restrictions are the designers imagination. Flash is also the ubiquitous solution for presenting video over the internet – for example, every video on YouTube and programme on BBC iPlayer are Flash.
The only drawback with Flash is the very fact it is a self-contained movie – it does not work well with Content Management Systems (CMS) or dynamic data fetched from a database. For example, the starlings and Brighton Pier you see behind here are created in Flash, but everything else on the site is built with AJAX upon a CMS. Partly because Flash does not deal with dynamic content well, but mainly because search engines can not read Flash and so search engine optimisation becomes impossible. For these reasons most large and regularly updated websites avoid Flash.
That said, Flash is still an incredible tool in the right designers hands and at wdb, we specialise in creating unique Flash websites. Sometimes film-like, sometimes subtle – we use Flash for what it’s for – creating striking, truly memorable website designs.
