Aegon, one of the world’s largest pension providers, were looking for a novel way of presenting additional brand information within a web video. Originally they felt it would require multiple videos, each focussing on a particular strand of their business. I was asked to come up with a way of introducing interactive elements in order to keep the movie short and snappy.
I built this flash interface which allows the viewer to pause the video and see more information simply by hovering over the screen. When you move the mouse off the screen the information disappears and the video continues. Sounds quite simple now that I see it written down.
I’ve created lots of flash animations over the years, many of them self-contained websites. But the trend seems to be away from these all-in sites and more towards using flash banners or just bits and pieces of flash sprinkled through a website. I think this has happened partly because flash was always absolutely hopeless for search engine optimisation – the designer always had to put in all kinds of alternate content specifically for search engines – and partly because there is hope that there may be a newer, easier technology on the horizon.
Whatever happens, animation on the web is here to stay and if there’s a better way than flash of incorporating moving elements I’ll be working with it soon. In the meantime, flash is still very much alive and well.
I could show you lots of examples of flash banners that I’ve made but they’re a bit meaningless outwith the context of the websites they belong in. Instead here is my favourite piece which is a little front page insert I created for Internet Karaoke, the online karaoke player. Queen Karaoke is the site’s ‘virtual hostess’ and the purpose of the animation was simply to tell customers they had to purchase credits before singing along. However, beyond the simple instruction to ‘Get Credits’ I decided we could have some fun.
I'm Greg Moodie, a freelance graphic designer based just outside Edinburgh in Scotland. I've been trading as Funhouse Graphics since 1998 and specialise in 2d & 3d animation with a heavy dash of quirky.
