Working with Flash to make Animated Banners

In my previous blog entry I talked about the output capabilities of Adobe After Effects and how I can easily integrate the compositions into other projects. In this project I will be creating a flash banner which will expand into a fully functioning flash micro site. The dynamic banner will need to be visually appealing  so that it grabs the audience's attention as it will be competing with other content on the webpage. A common place where you would find flash banners would be on e-commerce websites like amazon or eBay so its very important that you make your add stand out from the rest.

For this project i'm going to pretend that I have real client and they want me to create a banner which will encourage people to donate to their charity. The charity I have chosen is called "The Whaleman Foundation" which focuses on preserving the ocean habit. With this in mind my Flash banner will have have an ocean/underwater theme to it.

I then now conducted some research into after effects tutorials which simulate an underwater environment such as this one . Lawrence Grason. (2012).


In this tutorial Lawrence undertook a similar process as Andrew did in my previous entry however Lawrence has a slightly different technique in which he manipulates the settings of some of the preset effects. For example Lawrence applies the snowfall effect to his composition but then inverts the trajectory of the snow so that the snow is now travelling upwards like bubbles do underwater.

In an article by Rebecca Creger I learnt about some of the basic elements to consider when designing banner ads. The maximum size for banner ad is 600 pixels and its very important that within that space you convey the following things; A company logo, what your company offers and a call for a response from the user.

The design shouldn't be too cluttered so it's important that when I design my banner my composition should  have too much going on which may confuse the audience.

Rebecca Creger. (2013). 14 design tips for more clickable banner ads.Available: http://99designs.com/designer-blog/2013/10/14/14-design-tips-for-more-clickable-banner-ads/. Last accessed 15th March 2014.