Be careful what you wish for

So I keep thinking I need to brush up on my skills in Dreamweaver and Flash, creating interactive websites. Well, I guess I'm getting a reason to do this at work - at least with Flash. Last week we were on location shooting an educational video which will later be made into an interactive Flash presentation. Someone else had the vision for this and was supposed to do the work in Flash. Today that all changed. I was asked if we have the ability to do this. Of course my answer was 'yes, we have the capability, but I'm a bit rusty in working with that program'. So, I go off to do some tests and make a template to show the client and immediately ran into roadblocks. Yikes, it has been way too long since I worked in Flash. And I never did learn how to put video into a Flash file, I always did my own animations using images from Photoshop, Illustrator, and ones I'd made directly in Flash. Oh boy.

So I went looking for some quick tutorials and, with a bit of help and some trial and error, I got my videos into my Flash file. So now I'm stuck. I can't remember how to make it interactive and I am searching once again for some tutorials. Well I came across one that is for CS3 and integrates After Effects and Flash. While the exact use of the demo may not be relevant, it seems packed with great information about both programs. I can't embed the video since it's an Adobe Acrobat (Share) presentation and 40 minutes long, but I can include the links and how I got here:

Mcoleman's Adobe Blog

"Creating Interactive Video with After Effects and Flash"

Here's an image of how I'm feeling about it:

"Precarious" in WestEast Magazine by Brian Edwards

copyright Brian Edwards Photography, Inc. 2009

On the bright side, today is the first day I haven't turned on the TV or listened to TV online in so long that I can't really remember the last time I "killed my TV". That's progress, right?!

Think outside what box??

Currently I am struggling. I am feeling in one of those depths of despair about choosing a creative profession. Call it design block if you will - and it is a lot of the reason I began this blog in the first place - but when it hits, it becomes more than that. It becomes a life block and usually leads to depression. Last night I was wondering why I haven't been able to get a new personal website created and on the web. And I think there's just too much pressure there. It has to be so many things - and then I start to question if I try to be too many things.

Today I thought that I would try to find some favorite websites and pull what I like from each the most and somehow combine them into my own design for my website. And so I started with a CSS showcase and clicked on one of the pages that looked intriguing to me. The site I had chosen is in fact a personal website for designer Rob Morris. It's beautiful, direct, succinct, easy to navigate, and his journal is filled with words of wisdom!! The first one I read was "How I learned to become a failure" and it spoke to me today. I would also recommend the short Ted talk by Tom Wujec that was included in the journal article I just mentioned.



Now I should try some brain teasers to get myself out of this rut. I think I finally get why my design professor made us do 100 thumbnails for a logo of one company. I remember getting to about twenty and feeling so utterly tapped out that there was no way I could possibly get to 100. And quite frankly from about 18-100 the sketches completely stunk but they did get me thinking outside of the box.