Tom’s Graphic Design Journal

I'm sick of Minion. Minion is a type-face for those who don't know. Lately I've seen it around more than Helvetica, only I don't think it's as good as Helvetica. Helvetica is timeless. Minion is just a piece of junk. It's one step better than Times New Roman and while some may say Helvetica is one step better than Arial or Verdana, I'll half agree...but I also use Trade Gothic, Franklin Gothic, or Meta most times over Helvetica. However it depends. My point is you can't over use Helevetica. You can over use Minion.

The worst part is some poor bastard recently explained to me to use a "script face" so sure enough I did. I used Poetica...then they wanted something more "contemporary" so I gave them something more traditional/classical ... Shelley. Which flew right over their head, but they liked it. Why? Just for the same reason they like Minion probably...because they don't know jack shit and they want to be like everyone else.

There exists more than one font in this world people! Dare to dream come on (not that Poetica is a uncommon font or anything either but I felt more legible for web use than Shelley, which was one major reason for choosing it).

My point here is that after I used Shelley, they send me what they want and what they think to be a script face...Guess what it was?! Fucking Minion! It was minion oblique/italic. Give me a break! Anyway. I see Minion used too much and it's sickening.

Well obviously my previous post is related here...in that Flex really is Actionscript3 (when it gets compiled). However, some people have seen page turning examples in Flash8. There's also even been some 3D (Sandy) and that's been carried over to AS3/Flash CS3/Flex as well.

I wanted to clarify though that the manner in which things are done is different and much faster than AS2. I'm by no means an Actionscript expert. I write PHP applications and work with HTML/CSS. I'm a graphic designer by nature and photographer. However, I'm also a researcher.

So what is the power of Flex and Actionscript 3? SPEED. As well as some new features brought to us by Actionscript 3 (new features of course that are available to us in Flex and in Flash CS3). However I like Flex over Flash CS3 since I'm already comfortable with XML and the Eclipse IDE, I find myself being able to move through Flex very quickly.

What are these new features in AS3? One main excitement that I'm running into is the socket connections. AS2 allowed this for XML but now we can connect and read/send data in many new formats including binary. So this makes possible connections to SMTP/POP and other such things. Ok, build on that one step further with Adobe's Apollo and you can create e-mail and instant messenger applications to run on your desktop. Remember the power of speed. These applications can be developed very quickly! Here's another example of what the socket connection can be used for ... joystick control in Flash.

I don't think Flex, AS3, or Flash CS3 have caught on yet...and I'm not really sure Flash CS3 is going to propel the Flash users further and engage them as much as Flex would. The reason being is because Flash CS3 still behaves like Flash 8 and there's not much to entice someone to take advantage of AS3. It's been designed to be seamless and there's already Flash multi-user servers and multi-player games for Flash 8 that most people don't take advantage of as is...so why start with Flash 9? For most Flash designers I highly doubt life will change much. Aside from the Mac users getting a nice dock feature (much to Ryan's enjoyment). Also don't forget the "native" Photoshop document support.

I haven't really even scratched the surface of AS3 and it's power. All I talked about was the socket connections and the fact that it's faster to develop and faster to run on computers. LOL, ok that's big, but it's not the entire picture. There's a lot more out there. I think a lot more than most people know. There's barely any books out yet (and the ones out right now don't cover some of the more advanced features). The more blogs I read the more I find out. Information is quite scattered at this phase because everything is so new. I know the power behind AS3 (previously not a Flash/AS fan) and I truly do believe it will change the web as we know it. However, I still wish there was more SEO involved with Flash.

All I can say is WOW. Adobe Flex is simply amazing. It's converted me from a Flash hater to a Flash lover. I still am a stickler for SEO so I have my reservations, but the ideas flowing through my head now are endless...ok they usually are endless, but I mean the ideas for using Flex and all the new possibilities with projects.

I came across an example for a book. Sure, we've all seen variations of book page turning in Flash. However, Flex does it right and Ely Greenfield's Flex Book work is shining proof of what everyone has been wishing Flash could do. His examples are beautiful, especially the one with transparency effect for the medical anatomy overlay book. It's also nice to note that he's also used Apollo to create a desktop application for this. I think quite a few encyclopedias and medical companies will be knocking on his door. Of course Ely has been extremely gracious enough to publish his source code so he's put everyone at a level playing field. Ahh, the joys of open source. Well, of course he's always going to have a better knowledge than anyone and can always create something even better.

Anyway, I'm definitely a big supporter of Flex now and of Ely's work here for one, but there are many other developers out there (ok, Google groups' count is only a couple hundred, but it's getting there, yea...sorta kinda). Another great link to share would be Flex Box, which contains over a hundred (currently) Flex components, most with source code or some sort of explaination. This is a Flex showcase site as well as a place to learn. Again, thank you open source and people who like to share. When I create something as cool, I'll share. However, mainly I combine technologies and web scripting languages all over the place...I'm not an inventor really. "Visionary" ha, I like that one. "Graphic Designer" ha, I almost forgot that one with all this code. Well, enjoy.

Just a short entry here with a link. I'd rather let my research notes do the talking for a change. Be sure to check out the information I put up about getting a content search vendor for your CakePHP application working. It's nice what the vendor feature can do for us. It makes developing for CakePHP all that much more easier and faster. The implementation of this search is rather easy, but there's more advanced uses of the vendor feature out there.