Flash! Aaaah-ahhh!

July 15, 2004 4:34 PM

Flash Masters: Who are the best? Who is the Zeldman of Flash Design/Applications? I'm interested in knowing who has wide acclaim -- and maybe about those who should but don't yet.

Studios who also know how to write stuff that cooperates well with back end applications as well as great stuff on the client side are the most interesting.

posted by weston to computers & internet (9 comments total)

Hmm...Joshua Davis?
posted by kickingtheground at 5:48 PM on July 15, 2004

I'm no expert, but from what I understand, Eric Jordan/2advanced studios of 2advanced.com is very popular - trippy site, in an over-the-top, in your face kind of way. A lot of people think he's way overrated. I don't know enough about flash to know one way or the other. His stuff seems very aggressive to me.

Most people seem to think that Joshua Davis of praystation.com and joshuadavis.com does great work, possibly the best. He used to work for kioken, which was a hot, cutting-edge design firm a few years ago. Now he has his own studio. Jemma Gura of prate.com and Vicki Wong of Meomi.com and Amy Franchesini of futurefarmers.com are also very well thought of. If you go to designiskinky.net or surfstation.lu or any of those k10k.net-ish design sites, you'll see more references to some of the greats. Surfstation.lu has a lot of the supposed masters posting there on their weblog - check out their sites. This is all speculative, of course. I personally prefer Amy Franchesini and Vicki Wong. Sorry I didn't provide links.
posted by iconomy at 5:55 PM on July 15, 2004

Are you looking for commercial/usable design skills or art?
posted by skallas at 6:26 PM on July 15, 2004

Colin Moock is a well-respected authority like Zeldman, having written the book on Actionscript. Yugo Nakamura has created some awesomely innovative Flash interfaces, and is considered a Flash master. Ferry Halim's Orisinal is a standout in terms of beautifully crafted games.

2advanced's popularity is inexplicable.. their style is not well-liked amongst the designers I know.
posted by arha at 6:28 PM on July 15, 2004

yugo nakamura
daniel brown
james paterson
posted by juv3nal at 6:32 PM on July 15, 2004

Moock and Davis are the shits, most definately.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 7:06 PM on July 15, 2004

I almost forgot one of my favorites - Chopping Block. They've done nice work for Lego and Sony and some other names. Click where it says Orange Farmers down at the bottom to see the previous version of their site which had a very catchy ditty by They Might Be Giants.
posted by iconomy at 7:09 PM on July 15, 2004

Are you looking for commercial/usable design skills or art?

Let's say for this list that a sharp aesthetic sense is essential, but technical edge is more important.
posted by weston at 8:05 PM on July 15, 2004

colin moock is indeed the man. others, in addition to those named above:

james patterson
jared tarbell
robert penner
hillman curtis
todd purgason & phil scott
amit pitaru
james baker & kc austin
hoss gifford
marcos wescamp
branden hall
robert hodgin
manuel clement
erik natzke

there are also lots of other great people - check the speakers lists for major flash conferences.
posted by judith at 11:02 PM on July 15, 2004