I’m working on the Flash microsite site again. Cheered me up quite a bit, as I really feel I can get my teeth into it. Starting to add the visual elements to it, so it’s becoming more fun to work on.

I’m trying not to obsess too much about constructing it in the right way either. It’s easy to get caught up in the minutiae, but it will take me less time in the long run if I work out the details as I go along. I can always re-structure things later if I have to.

Anyway, best get back to it.

I do. I love gradients and rounded corners, but it’s turning into a sick, sick addiction. Every site I design now is full of gradients and highlights and little rounded corners…but it’s got to stop.

I’m now in the habit of, once I’ve finished designing a page, removing all the rounded corners to decide whether they actually benefit the design or not. However, my gradients and highlights are still a problem. I need to expand my design skills. So, I’m determined that the next site I design will have NO GRADIENTS…just to see if I can actually do it. I’m already a step towards it; the latest illustration that I’m working has no gradients in it at all….um….yet.

Well, while I’m almost fully converted from Elaine Simpson to Elaine McVicar, and now I’m getting converted from Danu Design to Elaine McVicar. You may not have noticed that my domain name has been changed over, with only a few hiccups, from yesterday, but here I am elainemcvicar.com. You know, I really like how that looks.

I’m building a Flash microsite at the moment with the consideration that it should end up being a re-useable template, as there may be additional microsites in the future. So best way for me to do it is to create classes that control the functionality of the site.

So far I have a main page structure set out. This includes one FLA file that imports a navigation class. This class creates the menu and controls the navigation between pages. I’ve even managed to get SWFAddress working. This lets the user click back and forward on their browser through the Flash site.

I’ve also created a separate class for all of the content pages. This ensures that the actionscript for each page doesn’t interfere with the others. Next steps are really to code the specific pages, add the content and reskin it to fit the design.

I know I’ll have quite a few challenges, and the timescales I have to work on it are really tight, but I’m looking forward to seeing this project through to the end.

Well, I’m glad this week is over. It’s been a pretty awful one. Redundancies announced at the start of the week, which has made work a very depressing and slightly more stressful place.

So, I’ve occupied myself with pottery class and climbing, which are two very good things to get yourself out of your own head. Also realised that when I started this blog my intention was to write about my thoughts on my general day to day work in design, but I seem to have gotten distracted into trying to write articles and tutorials. So, from now on I’m going to try to go back to my own thoughts. This is about me.