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From Text
Effects to Canned Goods:
Identity Construction and Visual Codes in the Flash Development
Community
- Megan Sapnar
Abstract
As the Net evolves from a static textual medium to an animated visual medium, the visual language of interface design takes
its shape through the industry-standard content development products used by Web developers. With the increasing use of
Macromedia's Web animation software, Flash, to generate Web content, the shape of the Web interface is becoming not only
animated, but also highly constructed by the software designers, the development community and graphic artists that are
largely responsible for developing "the look and feel" of cyberspace. The proliferation of Flash content online, and the
bricolage effects shared, reconstructed and adapted by the Flash development community helps inform our visual language and
aesthetical perception on the screen-shaping user expectations and methods of interacting with electronic symbols.
This paper examines the development community that has formed around Macromedia's Flash software. By shaping the interface,
Flash designers and developers are informing a digital visual language that becomes part of our cultural imagination,
dictating the way we see and the language we use to talk about information space. Specifically, this paper explores how
interface design is used to establish identity and status in the Flash community, and how community members use the software
to transform their own visual identity and circulate preferred aesthetics.
When William
Gibson defined cyberspace as a ‘consensual hallucination,' he described
windows that opened into graphical representations of unthinkably
complex fields of data. Scholars and commentators have applied
this often quoted description to the World Wide Web since its inception,
but only now is the mainly text-based Internet being eclipsed by
a truly graphical representation of cyberspace. Today, through
the visual language of interface design, we are presented with a
vastly interactive, richly animated Web shaped through the industry
standard content development products used by Web developers. Using
Macromedia’s Web animation software, Flash, to generate Web content,
the community of Web developers, designers, and graphic artists
are largely responsible for developing “the look and feel” of cyberspace.
In the process of constructing cyberspace, Flash designers construct
and perform their own graphical identities, embedding themselves
in a complex matrix of discourse and social structures that circulate
preferred Web aesthetics and reinforce visual codes.
Unlike HTML,
the official markup language of the Web that can be authored entirely
in a simple text editor, Flash is a software product made by a company
called Macromedia to support animated vector graphics on the Web.
Computer graphics fall into two basic categories: bitmap images
and vector graphics. Bitmaps, like the GIF and JPEG images embedded
in HTML pages, are pixel-based formats—they define colored pixels
on the screen. When a bitmap image is enlarged, the jagged pixels
that compose the picture become evident. Vector graphic formats,
however, because they are mathematical algorithms instead of mapped
pixels, are an ideal way to achieve real-time scalable, interactive,
high-frame rate images and animations with small enough file sizes
to be suitable for Web delivery (McClosky, 1999). To view Flash
content online, users must download a plug-in, and to create Flash
content, Web authors must purchase Macromedia’s Flash software.
But unlike HTML, Flash is virtually independent of browsers, which
means that everyone with a version 3 browser or better can see a
nearly identical version to that seen by every other user, and version
4 browsers and higher come with the plug-in bundled. [1]
Flash has its
own scripting language, called Actionscript, which developers use
to create advanced interactivity and special effects that mimic
the physics of the real world. ActionScript can be used to generate
user agency, such as the ability to drag an object on the screen,
or to create visual effects, such as programming an image to change
as the mouse gets near it, or to make the image fade when the mouse
moves away. One significant difference between Flash and HTML pages
is that users cannot use their browser to view the ActionScript
source code of a Flash file. This is not to say that the source
code can’t be found. Flash developers share files and techniques
with each other through other channels, such as online Flash development
communities, where motion graphics, text effects and open source
ActionScript code are deconstructed and circulated through development
community resource Web sites and the Flash interfaces of community
members. Many developer sites provide open source code, tutorials,
and downloadable files for use in one’s own Flash work. The circulation,
deconstruction, and fetishism of these cultural materials work to
establish visual codes that shape the way we use and imagine cyberspace.
The Flash
Community
To begin with,
there must be some distinction among the greater Flash Community,
the Flash Development Community, and the smaller Flash sub-communities
that have surfaced around the software product. Broadly speaking,
the entire Flash Community is a global network of Flash awareness
and promotion, the industry circulators of Flash technologies, corporate
sponsors, third party supporters, technology journalists, the fans
of Shockwave Flash animation
[2] , as well as the Flash Development Community, a vast
network of Macromedia support engineers, Web and graphic designers,
programmers, artists, illustrators and animators.
Composed of
a broad mix of individuals, from amateur teenage ‘newbies’ to dot-com
design hot-shots called ‘masters,’ the Flash Development Community
is tightly cohered through countless Flash sub-communities: bulletin
boards, developer Web sites, newsgroups and IRC channels dedicated
to providing social outlets, community resources, and technical
advice for the Flash designer. It is within these sub-communities
that Flash enthusiasts, known to each other as ‘Flashers,’ meet,
establish and propagate visual identities, and compete for status
and recognition from the larger Flash Community. For many Web designers
who use this product, Flash is not simply a file format or another
piece of computer software. [3] It is a bridge to community,
a means for establishing a visual identity, and a method to communicate
and circulate preferred aesthetics.
Methods
I will examine
how members of the Flash Development Community construct their visual
identities, establish status and recognition in the community, and
influence the visual aesthetics and emerging codes of the Web interface.
I have relied on bulletin threads from two different sub-community
environments: Flashkit.com and Dreamless.org. FlashKit.com, a popular
community resource site offering members enticing goodies such as
free tutorials, downloadable source code, royalty free sound loops,
bulletin board forums, and collections of inspiring links, is populated
by Flashers of all skill levels and generates much of its enthusiasm
from the bevy of contests and challenges in which members compete
for community recognition. FlashKit was established in October
1999 by Web developer Mark Fennell of Sydney, Australia, and as
of December 2001 is still very active. The Dreamless.org Web site
was a community forum created by Flash master Joshua Davis in the
spring of 2000, and consisted entirely of bulletin threads on a
plain gray background with topics from design and scripting advice
to freewheeling time-killing ponderings on non-Flash related topics.
The Dreamless community was a significant force in the
Flash Development community, and although Davis officially closed
the site down on July 15, 2001, it stands as a very relevant example
of how community discourse influences the circulation of visual
codes.
Although these
are distinctly “branded” environments within the greater Flash community,
many of the behavioral norms of interacting with fellow community
members carry over from one community to another. Indeed, members
frequently consider themselves members of the Macromedia community,
or members of the design community, who “hang out” at certain Web
sites. However, the differences between each community’s affiliations
are reflected in the type of community members each attracts. Dreamless,
for example, as the only community site of its kind run by a Flash
master, tended to draw a much more design-savvy crowd who carefully
followed the work of established masters and as a group, tended
to be higher up and more embedded in the design community. FlashKit,
by comparison, has its fair share of seasoned designers, but because
it is a general Flash resource site, it draws a much broader audience
of Flash enthusiasts.
I have altered
or omitted the screen names of community members to preserve users
privacy, with the exception of the Flash masters, who have already
gained recognition and status in the field. The original spelling
and grammar have been preserved. The threads that were included
in this study were selected over an eight-week period of time, from October 20th
to December 18th, 2000, and were chosen as particular
illustrations of the topics raised. Specifically, this paper will
address the following questions: First, how do community members
adapt shared and reconstructed visual signs in order to establish
identity and gain recognition within the community? Second, how
does community discourse influence the circulation of a preferred
Web aesthetics and visual codes? And third, how do community interactions
contribute to the emerging language of the Web interface?
Performing
Identities through the Interface
Although an
extensive amount of work was done in the nineties concerning identity
formation in virtual communities and MUD’s, [4] text-based virtual worlds that
were popular in the early days of the Web, little work has been
done on the construction of identity through the visual interfaces
of Web design communities. In text-based virtual worlds, identity
is established through language—the textual description of the character’s
persona. Although some conversational and identity establishing
cues can be represented in textual spaces, specifically through
the use of language signs such as emoticons, fully interactional
multimedia spaces like Flash Web sites offer a multitude of identity-defining
signals that offer alternative modes of representation not always
available in physical spaces.
As the means
by which we interact with the system, the study of interface design
has been the subject of considerable research. Beth Kolko’s examination
of race and interface design explores the implications of the absent
@race prompt in multi-user-domains, underlining the significance
of how architectural decisions in the system design affect users
methods of interacting with one another. Kolko cites the work of
Brenda Laurel, whose Computers as Theater advanced the discourse
surrounding interface design by arguing that a user’s interaction
with a computer was a theatrical moment and that human-computer
interaction is performative. This growing line of inquiry, Kolko
points out, seems to represent a growing awareness that technology
interfaces carry the power to prescribe representative norms and
patterns (220).
For the Flash
Development community, norms and patterns are exchanged in the performance
of one’s identity through the interface, and interactions with the
interface identities of fellow community members. As a community
that largely defines itself in visual terms, the Flash interface
becomes the most important identity-defining object, an illustration
of creative design, programming artistry and software mastery.
For many community members, one’s personal Flash interface does
not just serve as an example of taste; rather one’s interface is one’s identity. Many personal Flash sites follow a typical formula
that includes a weblog chronicling interactions with other community
members, a portfolio of past work and/or design experiments, contact
information, and selected links to the top sites of other designers.
Linking to other designers’ sites serves as a method to demonstrate
one’s awareness of the work of Flash masters, suggesting through
the loose connections of hypertext one’s desire to be included in
the tight and competitive design community structure. Established
designers operate exclusive design-inspiration sites, collectively
recognized by the community as master lists of the best design on
the Web. To have one’s personal site linked to from a top inspiration
site is the ultimate form of flattery, a recognition that sometimes
manifests in bloated egos. A Dreamless community member, noticing
the increased arrogance of fellow designers who have recently been
initiated into the elite link circles comments:
...getting
linked on threeoh, or k10k, or designiskinky does not make you a
better person than someone just starting out...having a nice site
doesn't give you a license to be a dickhead to kids who might be
visually challenged...
[5]
These links
are a deliberate method to engage one’s performance with the already
established identities of the community’s respected designers.
For new members
of the Flash community, the development of an interface and hence
one’s identity is so anticipated and integral to one’s interactions
in cyberspace, that community members frequently neglect other elements,
such as site content, in order to begin circulating the URL of their
visual identity. It is not uncommon to visit a Flasher’s personal
site and find an elaborate animated introduction with a fully developed
interface, yet little if any content. Visitors are greeted with
a control panel of generically labeled buttons that illustrate how
design elements interact within graphical space, yet textual content
is limited to little more than a message saying “Come back again
when this section is completed.” These interface-only Web sites
emphasize the container over content, style over substance. Such
sites are common among newbies and younger designers who wish to
construct a Web site but have little reason for doing so other than
to demonstrate their development skills. To more seasoned designers,
these novice attempts are viewed as shallow and extraneous. A Dreamless.org
member comments to a newbie who has asked for opinions on the look
of his latest interface:
I
am so sick of "layouts" and "makeovers." I'm
not trying to be harsh, but I wish someone had been this straight
with me from the get-go. Please, don't waste precious time making
links that don't go anywhere and hypertext without TEXT.
The Web itself
is a graphical interface to the Internet, and the individual design
of every site on the Web is the interface by which we access the network
of files that make up cyberspace. Technically, a hyperlink can connect
one file to any other file on the Web, reflecting the decentralized
nonlinear nature of the network. But the Web interfaces of the Flash
design community literally link only among themselves, establishing
exclusive associations with preferred designers in a highly selective
status-oriented circle of intertextualities and shared aesthetics.
Constructing a Visual Brand of Identity
It has become
a common neologism to refer to our society as a visual culture.
Through the digital signals of pop culture-- video games, motion
graphics, music videos, Web sites-- the proliferation of ads, logos,
and brands circulate through our culture at a dizzying speed. Everything,
it seems, has a crafted image. For many Web and graphic designers,
especially those involved in the production of cultural products,
ubiquitous branding techniques become infused with an online visual
identity centered in the Flash interface of personal sites.
In his work
on the construction of identities through personal home pages, Daniel
Chandler describes the use of bricolage, a concept based on Claude
Levi-Strauss’s notion of the bricoleur who appropriates ready-made
materials. Bricolage is the adopting and adapting of borrowed materials
from the cultural sphere, a process that is made quite easy given
the virtual and digital nature of the Web—graphics, sounds, text
and code can be copied or borrowed from other people’s sites and
infused into the fashioning of one’s own interface design (Chandler,
1998). For Flash designers lurking within the graphical representation
of the Web, the process of bricolage involves appropriating free
music loops, text effects, background images, ActionScript code,
and movie clips from downloadable collections offered both by fellow
community members and the resource archives of community sites like
FlashKit. But to completely establish one’s identity as an accomplished
Flash designer, community members use bricolage material to coordinate
the production of a polished self-promotion identity package.
For example,
a FlashKit community member that goes by the screen name “ninjapixel”
has a Flash signature
[6] that is a grainy black and white high contrast profile
of a man’s head that shakes side to side when rolled over with the
mouse. A tagline above it reads, “Your kung-fu is strong, but I
shall defeat you with my gaussian blur...”
[7] Clicking on the image launches a pop-up window to
ninjapixel’s matching URL where motion graphic design is used to
communicate this individual’s identity, which takes on a brand-like
permeation that knits the screen name, visual signature or logo,
tagline, URL address, style, and interface into one matching package.
In this case, the identity of ninjapixel is communicated visually
and aurally as a hybrid of martial arts influenced graphics and
heavily pixilated duotoned jumpy close-angle shots and heavily processed
photographs set to an electric guitar loop of hard rock music.
Elaborate constructions of identity like this one illustrate how
visual elements are appropriated from the cultural sphere and combined
to produce a branded identity package that is marketed to other
Flashers in sub-communities. But perhaps more importantly, the circulation
deconstruction, and fetishism of these bricolage materials also
work to establish visual codes—semiotic systems or conventions that
carry meaning in a visual representation, such as ways of organizing
space, positioning the spectator, moving graphical elements and
navigating the site contents.
Visual Codes
and Representational Technologies
The semiotic
study of codes involved in the process of representation reveals
the ways in which meanings are constructed through sign systems.
Chandler describes a code as “a set of practices familiar to users
of the medium operating within a broad cultural framework.” (Chandler,
1994.) He points out that the convention of codes represents a
social dimension, as codes are interpretive frameworks used by both
producers and interpreters of texts. Because codes, in time, tend
to “naturalize” established conventions, making them seem less like
codes and more like “obvious” representational practices, they are
greatly implicated in the processes of positioning spectators and
shaping and upholding dominant ideologies.
The use of
the vanishing point in linear perspective is just one example of
a visual code that has been the subject of extensive research.
Panofsky famously argued in “Perspective as Symbolic Form”
that linear perspective was a 'symbolic
form' - a historically situated system of conventions for representing
pictorial space, which reflected the dominant cultural worldview
of the Italian Renaissance (Edgerton 1975, cited in Chandler, 1994).
Often cited as a semiotic system that contributed to a profound
shift in the Western culture worldview, the vanishing point created
the illusion of anteriority—what was depicted appeared independent
of its pictorial representation, as if the mathematically-based
formal technique was a dependable code that could faithfully represent
unmediated reality, if applied with the proper artistry (Yoshimoto,
109.)
In Ways
of Seeing, John Berger argues that perspective does not point
to multiple viewpoints, but to only one, the privileged eye of the
beholder. “Perspective makes the single eye the center of the visible
world. Everything converges on to the eye as to the vanishing point
of infinity (Berger, 16). Looking at the represented world in
this way confirmed a narcissistic view of the unique self. As Bill
Nichols points out, this unique self corresponded with new economic
models: “the centering of and upon the subject or ego in Renaissance
painting coincides with the first signs of a growing emphasis upon
the individual rather than a chain of being, an emphasis that flourished
with the emergence of entrepreneurial capitalism”(Nichols, 83).
In this way, the apparent “technical innovation” of linear perspective
is revealed as a visual code that had subtle but profound ideological
implications.
In film, visual
codes perform similar ideological functions of “positioning the
subject,” and rely on techniques such as camera shots, editing,
montage, lighting, color, sound, graphics, and narrative style.
(Chandler, 1994) Film theorists refer to “suturing”—the “invisible
editing” between shots, which foreground the narrative while masking
the ideological processes that shape viewer subjectivity by “stitching”
the spectator into the world of the film. The use of shot/reverse
shot editing, a technique of switching back and forth between shots
to establish continuity, and the eye-line match, in which two characters
in different shots appear to look at each other because of the direction
of their glances, are classic cinematic codes that appear “transparent”
to viewers familiar with the conventions.(ibid)
New representational
technologies, it has been argued, both rely on and transgress earlier
media codes. Jay David Bolter and Richard Grussin contend that new
media achieve their cultural significance by honoring, rivaling
and revising earlier media such as perspective painting, photography,
film and television. This process of refashioning, they refer to
as ‘remediation’ and note that earlier media have also rearticulated
the content and logic of one another: photography remediated painting,
film remediated stage production and photography, and television
remediated film, vaudeville and radio. Accessing audiovisual, news,
education and entertainment shows on the same medium even from different
sources blurs the distinctions between the contexts in which each
originated (Bolter and Grussin, 2000).
Lev Manovich
uses the term “cultural interfaces” to describe the way we are increasingly
“interfacing” not to a computer, but to culture encoded in digital
form. He argues that interfaces are cultural objects that we can
understand because they are built on the language and metaphors
of former cultural objects, like cinema, the printed word, and general-purpose
human-computer interfaces. His use of these terms refers to a set
of conventions associated with each cultural form. “Cinema,” he explains,
“includes mobile camera, representation of space, editing techniques,
narrative conventions, activity of spectator—in short different
elements of cinematic, perception, language, and reception” (Manovich,
1997).
Circulating
Preferred Web Aesthetics
Community discourse
influences the circulation of what I have referred to here as “preferred
Web aesthetics,” the privileging of certain visual codes in a Flash
representation. Flashkit is just one of dozens of community development
sites organized into downloadable resources and tutorials, contests
and competitions, and a collection of community forums divided into
categorized topics dedicated to very specific applications of Flash.
There is a separate forum for numerous sub-topics, including Actionscripting,
gaming, text effects, sound, character animation, 3-D, design, and
a community lounge for general socializing, which is by far the
most active forum on the site. The availability of source files
and tutorials and the organization of threads into carefully monitored
topics, shapes the way discourse emerges. For example, a forum
devoted to “site checks,” in which Flashers submit their URL for
review and critique, helps initiate newbies into understanding the
appropriate uses of visual codes in the Flash text. The “Flash
Intro,” an introductory animation usually lasting between 10 and
30 seconds that played before entering a Flash site, was a popular
code used to introduce a Flash interface. The purpose of the Flash
intro was both to demonstrate the “bells and whistles” of multimedia,
and to set the stage for a “new kind of Web experience,” one that
was more engaging than a static HTML site. However, in time the
Flash intro as an established convention began to crumble when it
came under the attack of usability experts like Jakob Nielson, who
complained about the forced submission of the cinematic experience:
unless the site included a “skip intro” button, a viewer could do
nothing but wait for the sequence to finish, an act that removed
spectator control. As a result, the intro became one of the prime
reasons why some critics announced, “Flash is Evil,” [8] and according to Jakob Nielson, “Flash: 99% Bad.”
[9]
In order to
save the reputation of the beloved software, designers became more
vocal in expressing their desire to promote new ways of experiencing
the Web. The designer Hillman Curtis’ public response to Nielson
acknowledges “irresponsible design” in many Flash interfaces, a
consequence of the desktop publishing phenomena where virtually
anyone can buy the software and call herself or himself a designer.
Forums like FlashKit’s “Site Check” enables community members already
familiar with established conventions to guide new users in constructing
Flash texts that successfully incorporate acceptable visual codes.
The Dreamless
community reinforced visual codes that demonstrate high ActionScript
proficiency by pressuring members to include a URL in their user
profile, so other members could assess each others visual interfaces.
Without a URL to demonstrate skills and familiarity with visual
codes, members are less likely to be taken seriously, and are often
severely criticized, especially those who post design criticisms
of other members work:
the
one thing that annoys the fuck out of me is when people say some
dumb ass arrogant shit, like they are the dopest designer/programmer
etc..and you go to check their profile and they don't have a url
in that shit...i dunno..it's just something that makes me look at
the person as a total punk ass herb, even if they are good at what
they do...if you are gonna talk shit and be negative about someone
elses work..at least have the balls to show yours.
Furthermore, having
an established and recognized visual identity frequently corresponds
with levels of involvement in community discourse, as this member
notes:
i've
watched the community of dreamless unconsiously[sp?] split the members
into three groups. the people who have a shitload of posts and a
decent url; the people who have lots of posts and a url; and the
people who have very little posts and no url. i've heard more times
than i care to count "i think you should have a url and/or
more posts than that before you come post your opinions.
A “decent url”
is frequently associated with a Flashers’ ability to successfully
appropriate difficult code, an act that not only demonstrates ones
skills, but also works to reinforce preferred aesthetics, and the
visual codes in which they rely.
One example of the rapid circulation, fetishism and appropriation
of borrowed material that emerged as a visual code comes from a
presentation delivered by Davis at the Flash Forward 2000 conference
in New York City, entitled “Creating Complexity from Simplicity,”
where he used the metaphor of a fern to illustrate how complex designs
can emerge from a simple set of rules. He then demonstrated a navigation
system that arranged content outside the visible screen area and
gave the illusion of elegant motion that slows gracefully into the
frame before stopping inside the viewing area [Figure 1]. Davis
made the source code and a step-by-step tutorial of this process
as a free download on his Praystation Web site, where thousands
of Flashers downloaded the files to help learn how ActionScript
can be used. As a result, the code was deconstructed and fetishized
and incorporated into the Flash interfaces as a way of elevating
the “quality” of the motion design—incorporating the code served
as a way to be taken more seriously by the Flash community and a
way to impress potential clients. Ultimately, Davis’ interactive
motion navigation technique became an established way of organizing
and accessing site content, and is used repeatedly by interactive
design companies responsible for building corporate cultural products
in Flash from tennis shoes to Jaguar cars. [10] [Figure 2]
Figure 1,Detail from Davis’ presentation, “Creating Complexity
From Simplicity”
Figure 2, The Jaguar Web site
Despite the widespread practice of appropriation of code and design
components, there is a very fine line between bricolage and the
blatant copying or stealing of another Flash interface design, a
process referred to in the Flash community as “ripping.” Whereas
bricolage involves appropriating ready-made materials—a Photoshop
filter, a method of navigation, or a text effect—it is still up
to the designer to combine these materials in new ways. Because
the community is built on the circulation of design components,
ripping is seen as an attempt to steal another’s identity and is
frequently the subject of community discourse. This Dreamless member
explains:
there
is a difference between taking an element from something, adding
flavor to it, and freaking it in your own way....and straight up
ripping...of course you will be influenced by stuff you like...but
there's a line between being infuenced and straight up copying..that
you should try not to cross...
Because a considerable
amount of time and energy goes into establishing one’s Flash identity,
community members are particularly careful not to tarnish their reputation,
or ruin their chances of establishing status and recognition in the
community social structure.
From Text Effects to Canned Goods
Because of
its emphasis as a community resource site, Flashkit maintains its
popularity by growing its archive of free downloads and tutorials
as well as constantly advertising new additions to keep community
members coming back for more. How does Flashkit keep their databases
full of thousands of valuable source files without employing hundreds
of full time Flash developers and content editors? By offering
status incentives to the Flashkit community in the form of contests
and membership levels, Flashkit encourages its members to climb
to higher membership levels through a carefully mediated point system
that rewards tutorial and source code submissions and community
interaction. In FlashKit, URL’s are much less important than in
Dreamless, as the community point system bears the most weight in
determining community status levels. What these power systems ultimately
reflect is the significant effects community architecture has on
the larger cultural formations regarding Web aesthetics.
As I have mentioned
above, the most direct route to status and recognition in the Flash
community is to illustrate one’s skills by building an exemplary
and cutting edge Web site—an interface that reflects design sophistication
and mastery of the software. The experimental design projects published
by recognized Flash masters push the limits of Web design in extremely
contemporary ways. Elements within these projects, a specific design
technique for presenting a calendar in the case of Praystation,
and a Nakamura’s user-controlled animated menu at Monocrafts, are
then picked up by other designers and circulated throughout the
community.
An earlier
example of how these elements can be circulated is illustrated by
the rise to popularity of the “Dennis Interactive Text Effect.”
This was a widely circulated tutorial demonstrating how the design
company Dennis Interactive achieved an effect that looked like stabbing
text flipping onto the screen. Once the method for reproducing
this effect was deconstructed by the community, the effect began
popping up all over the Web, as users began incorporating this technique
in interface animations. Naturally, over use devalues the effect
and it ceases to serve as a status indicator or communicate the
same meaning. The final absorption of a design effect is its addition
to an array of pre-packaged filters or effects within the software
product itself. Adobe Photoshop, the industry standard image editing
software offers a vast collection of filters that use algorithms
to simulate image distortion, such as “motion blur,” and “charcoal
cut out.” Third-party software, such as a product called Swish,
automates the process of creating kinetic typography. These effects,
when hand created, were time consuming and complicated to carry
out, but once they become automated, they connote a different signal
all together—an algorithm effect is a canned good.
New Flash users,
striving to establish an interface identity, download source code
and tutorials like the Dennis Interactive Text Effect which have
been created and adapted by other community members, who in turn
absorb the elements from other designers and Flash masters. These
tutorials, and the effects demonstrated within them, then become
part of the new users design toolbox. As users master Actionscripting,
members become even more involved in the community, seeking advice
for complex solutions to technical problems and perhaps even contributing
source code and answers for new users. The result is a continuous
self-feeding community, where certain design elements become preferred
visual aesthetics, a process that ultimately filters design and
interface decisions out of the sub-communities, and into the interfaces
of corporations and other Web sites within the larger cultural sphere.
This presents a quandary for some designers, who recognize the discrepancies
between the community’s collective values of establishing a unique
visual identity and the permeation of preferred aesthetics, as this
Dreamless member asks:
i
wonder how much being around eachother effects our creativity and
style?
we all have similar taste in music and culture for the most part,
does it hurt us more to be enclosed in a community like dreamless?
i know we are all inspired by eachother but after awhile we all
tend to think on the same path...we all goto the same sites, get
the same links from the same places....are we truly underground
as we think we are? or are we the same as the masses that buy pop
culture?
On Flashkit, a
similar idea is expressed in a thread called ‘What is mainstream?
Who decides?:'
I
have had enough with keeping up on the mainstream world! Who decides
what is in fashion for Flash things? Who's to say the mouse trails
are out? chaotic intros out? Dragable windows in? Who is the deciding
factor? Why do you we always follow mainstream things? How or who
decides something is "in" right now? At what point do
we reach the same old repeditive style? When does something become
cliche? What is in style? Why am I, and you, and every other Flasher
I know going to stick with the current trend?
As the personal
techniques of recognized Flash masters become part of a designer’s
repertoire of influence on the larger community, celebrated techniques
are embraced, mimicked, and circulated around the entire Web, from
an elite network of established designers into the community at large.
These fetishized design elements frequently re-surface in the interface
of the authoring software itself, ultimately impacting the decisions
designers make when choosing which visual elements are used to communicate
a message. As a new representational technology still in the nascent
stages of development, the visual codes that emerge in Flash interfaces
inform perceptions of cyberspace, impact subjectivity, and initiate
new relationships between spectator and image—with far reaching implications
of ideological significance.
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