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39 Creative Flash Designs

By Smashing Editorial, April 2nd, 2008 in Design Showcase | 90 Comments | Forum

Flash is powerful. Using it properly, you can create stunning visual experience and offer your visitors incredible user interaction. Although Flash is definitely not the favourite medium for usability and accessibility advocates, it has its advantages. With Flash designers can achieve results which simply aren’t possible with (X)HTML and CSS. Whether you like Flash or not, it empowers the Web with functionalities which make it an incredibly interactive medium.

Flash-based web-sites can look not like web-sites at all; Flash-designers tend to use colorful, dynamic, loud and extremely vibrant approaches, with effects and animation, music and videos, stunning visual elements and interactive navigation menus. Below you’ll find some examples of creative, beautiful, shocking, unusual, but always outstanding Flash-based designs.

You might also want to take a look at the articles

65 Excellent Flash Designs which features 65 examples of outstanding Flash-based web-sites.
Showcase Of Creative Flash Preloaders which may serve as an inspiration for your Flash-projects.
Adobe Flash Tutorials: Best Of with hand-picked professional Flash tutorials which can enrich your design skills and improve the quality of your works.

Advertising and Games

To attract consumers site owners often tend to use some visually appealing Flash-solutions, 3D-experience with sounds and graphics motion is usual. Games are another option worth considering.

Intel’s Robo Brawl game. Very beautiful and interactive design.

Flash Screenshot

Oh, By The Way — this is how an effective album promotion web-site should look like.

Good things — an advertising-project of the company “Orange”. Be pPrepare to endlessly scroll to the bottom of the page.

Neon Bible: Arcade Fires interactive video-clip. Dont forget to click.

Build your wild self — have you ever created a person with animal features? Well, maybe you should. A promotional site for New York zoos.

Farm Rio presents a truly excellent Flash-design, but what is it actually?

Zune — more vivid colors for a boring product.

iDecorabilit — decorating furniture online. Beautiful concept, interesting design.

Agatha — a distinctive, personal, minimalistic and beautiful design.

Sir Patroclo — take it easy, tiger. This little guy at the bottom should get some rest.

Halo3 — interactive Flash at its best. Excellent visual experience.

CDX — very sinematic and beautiful Flash-based game. One of those you-wake-up-in-a-room-and-you-have-to-escape games. Beautiful!

Art & Experiments

Typography Kicks Ass — some fun with Flickr-images.

Masayuki Kido seems to be pretty brave. Visitors can make a ball out of him. Don’t forget to click on his face.

Serge Tretiakov offers an interesting combination of scrolling and background motion. Pretty unusual design, maybe even disturbing.

A photographer Bernhard Wolff has a Flash-layout which is simply impossible to achieve with CSS and (X)HTML.

Sergey Tyukanovs Museum of Art — here “gallery” actually means “gallery”.

Eye-Project is an impressive animated collaborative mosaic. Including a variety of preloading time required to see the site.

Flash Screenshot

Zoomquilt Part II — you can walk across the planet going deeper into the image. Zoomquilt is also a collaborative project.

Bigo and Twigetti — who would have guessed that? Bigo and Twigetti are musicians from London.

(Web)-Designers & Design Agencies

Opulentes by Nitrogenix. We bet you’ve never seen something like this before.

Progetty Design Studio — oh-oh, take it easy, buddy.

Atsushi Watanabe — very calm, peaceful and beautiful design.

Mohammad Rahimi doesn’t use a lot of space. The site is still extremely dynamic and interactive.

Max Shaman delivers something… strange. You can play with the doll and needles if you like to.

Clusta has many lines, interactive lines, exploding lines and flying lines.

Xcel Media seems to love the spreadsheet.

An illustrator Chu Keng Fu from Taiwan showcases his art…

…and his colleague Martin Haake has his own understanding of a modern web design.

The Science — finally some vivid colors!

Flash Screenshot

Communicator World — a little bit too playful.

No-Idea has some pretty nice ideas. A design from Thailand.

Saizen Media Studios presents some splendid animated scenes.

MiniGorille.com — best viewed in the fullscreen-mode.

Esja — so many colorful notes!

Kraftvoll — creativity from France.

Amautalab — a design agency with sweet plastic characters.

Aardman Animations — home, sweet home…

Something Completely Different

Manuell Dall’olio interacts with site visitors using his own hands. That’s not really beautiful, but creative.

Published in Design Showcase, April 2nd, 2008
Tags: animation, flash, layouts, navigation, webdesign

1.

DonLucoIII (April 2nd, 2008, 5:55 am)

It’s stuff like this that keeps pushing me to teach myself Flash. I especially like the interface in Link [www.bigoandtwigetti.co.uk] music section.
2.

Frank with the pan (April 2nd, 2008, 6:12 am)

I love you!
3.

Abdel Faiz (April 2nd, 2008, 6:22 am)

Amazing collection !!
4.

BongoBox (April 2nd, 2008, 6:26 am)

oh.
wow.

more reason(s) to do better work.
thank you. i need this.

hope you see me here next time…

–bb
5.

Jbcarey (April 2nd, 2008, 6:26 am)

Great collection although we all shouldn’t forget the impack Eric Jordan Link [www.2advanced.com] and serveral other (older) sites had on the web….
6.

sarustyle (April 2nd, 2008, 6:43 am)

awesome post mate!
7.

al (April 2nd, 2008, 6:47 am)

You should not forget The FWA Link [www.thefwa.com] as they show these types of sites every day.
8.

Bruno Bergher (April 2nd, 2008, 6:56 am)

Great post, as always!

Farm (6th from the top) is a fashion brand from Rio de Janeiro., Brasil. I’m sure the site being in portuguese isn’t of much help to you. : )
9.

yichi (April 2nd, 2008, 7:14 am)

The first one definitely is the best of my own top 10!
great collection!
10.

Tyler (April 2nd, 2008, 7:15 am)

Great collection!!!

Although, the 9th one down, Agatha, is now under construction!! :(
11.

anti-pixel (April 2nd, 2008, 7:22 am)

Mohammad Rahimi site is a flash template ^^
12.

Bruno Bergher (April 2nd, 2008, 7:25 am)

Great post, as always!

Farm (6th from the top) is a fashion brand from Rio de Janeiro., Brazil. I’m sure the site being in portuguese isn’t of much help to you. : )
13.

justin (April 2nd, 2008, 8:18 am)

very nice, reminds me to check thefwa.com more often for similar. I love Saizen Media Studios the most out of these.
14.

Steven Finch (April 2nd, 2008, 9:15 am)

This is another great Smashing post. I need a cool design for my site, Link [crenk.com]
15.

cemiotika (April 2nd, 2008, 9:17 am)

It’s : “Sir Patroclo”.

Cheerz!,
16.

cemiotika (April 2nd, 2008, 9:19 am)

It’s : “Sir Patroclo”,

Cheerz!,
17.

Michel Ferreira (April 2nd, 2008, 10:25 am)

Farm Rio - not famrio is a a very famous clothing company for the hip and cool girls of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil!
18.

Daniel Holter (April 2nd, 2008, 11:11 am)

Any list of Flash designers is woefully incomplete without including JD Hooge of Gridplane ( gridplane.com ).

He designed our music licensing site ( burstlabs.com ) which was a Top 5 finalist at SXSW-Interactive this past month.

There’s def some great work being done in Flash these days, thanks for all of the quality links, as usual!
19.

moritzpeuser (April 2nd, 2008, 11:21 am)

Link [www.saizenmedia.com] and their products are really really great!

I’m a fan of them. Only the users using moding will have a few problems ;)
20.

Rickenbaker (April 2nd, 2008, 12:13 pm)

Let me see… the zune is “boring” because is not from apple?
21.

Kwebs (April 2nd, 2008, 12:31 pm)

We hahve people with lots…..lots…..and lots…… of talent
22.

zee (April 2nd, 2008, 3:58 pm)

who started putting captions above the image? the tradition has always been for captions to go below pictures.
23.

Sebastian H (April 2nd, 2008, 4:14 pm)

Well, maybe you never saw the new Zune in action or real life, but it is definetly not boring!
24.

Danieru (April 2nd, 2008, 4:40 pm)

Sir Patrodo —->Sir Patroclo

please correct that.
25.

MiSc (April 2nd, 2008, 11:34 pm)

However, hires already go back to the animated gif!
26.

imaginepaolo (April 3rd, 2008, 12:50 am)

Great article. Thanks.
Wath about this flash articles? Link [www.imaginepaolo.com]
27.

forapathy (April 3rd, 2008, 1:16 am)

Mohammad Rahimi website is a flash template from template monster :D .. and thanks for the new links
28.

Mr Kuzio (April 3rd, 2008, 1:27 am)

Ottima raccolta!

Ne farò buon uso ;)
29.

Tom (April 3rd, 2008, 1:44 am)

I don’t have the industry standard anti-flash attitude that seems popular these days, but I’ve looked at 4 things so far, all with different volume levels and no volume or sound on/off controls. seriously, haven’t Flash designers learned this yet?
30.

grik (April 3rd, 2008, 3:38 am)

Thanks for the great collection.
31.

drapz (April 3rd, 2008, 3:52 am)

Another good site for flash design inspiration is Link [websitedesignawards.com]
32.

Rodrigo (April 3rd, 2008, 4:09 am)

‘Good things’ is a very stunning site and also made me feel like a child! Congratulations for the choice!
33.

haRacz (April 3rd, 2008, 6:18 am)

Link [webesteem.pl]
34.

YUI (April 3rd, 2008, 6:51 am)

great list! thanks guys
35.

Braintrove.com (April 3rd, 2008, 8:28 am)

Quite a collection.
36.

velvet (April 3rd, 2008, 3:41 pm)

OMFG that’s my template! Link [www.templatemonster.com]
37.

sun_ (April 3rd, 2008, 10:35 pm)

Link [www.derbauer.de] and Link [www.2advanced.com] are missing and both worth a visit!
38.

mrelusive (April 4th, 2008, 12:52 pm)

Very nice collection, but that stab at the Zune for being “boring” seems a bit arrogant, if not ignorant.
39.

Reginald (April 5th, 2008, 7:30 am)

I genuinely enjoyed reviewing the distinctly different flash designs showcased in this post. I really enjoyed the 65 excellent flash design article that was included in your posts.

Thanks for including such useful resources.
40.

Katy (April 6th, 2008, 7:52 am)

Some really cool sites here
Thank you!
Kt
41.

Mark (April 7th, 2008, 7:12 am)

Great job, folks. I’ve noticed that some flash elements were even implemented into flash templates providers products, like flashmint.com
42.

ruben (April 13th, 2008, 7:00 pm)

good list…but…

sergey tyukanovs and kraftvoll are Template Monsters
43.

Fernando L. (April 15th, 2008, 2:02 pm)

Great post!

btw, Farm Rio is a women’s wear store in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.
44.

Manuel (June 4th, 2008, 10:40 am)

Cool Sites!

But there are really great Stuff from Germany, too. Look at this!

Link [www.derbauer.de]
45.

Peter (June 11th, 2008, 2:18 pm)

I found robo brawl extremely boring to play. A site that looks good but has no engaging content will not be a site that users return to. The Arcade Fire’s site is much more interesting because it allows users almost endless interactivity and outcomes with the audio and visual content

This video site for the band Spiritualized is a bit simple, but its more engaging because it keeps the user interested not only by audio but by visuals and a freedom of interactivity.

Link [www.spiritualizedharmonies.com]
46.

Peter (June 11th, 2008, 2:19 pm)

I found robo brawl extremely boring to play. A site that looks good but has no engaging content will not be a site that users return to. The Arcade Fire’s site is much more interesting because it allows users almost endless interactivity and outcomes with the audio and visual content

This video site for the band Spiritualized is a bit simple, but its also engaging because it keeps the user interested not only by audio but by visuals and a freedom of interactivity.

Link [www.spiritualizedharmonies.com]
47.

Anthony Alexander (January 25th, 2009, 3:17 pm)

The Halo 3 site is exactly why I hated FLash Users. This is Flash abuse at its worse, takes forever to load and at the end of that empty rails experience, suicide might be an option since Halo itself sucks balls. I really realy.. really hated it.
48.

saagar (March 29th, 2009, 5:05 am)

I can suggest a couple of more creative flash websites here.
Link [www.lmbfashions.com]
Link [www.jjexpoimpoindia.com]
What say guys?
49.

anne_nime (April 24th, 2009, 2:23 am)

Manuell Dall’olio’s site seems to have a problem with his Rollover-Rollout functions. Its kinda hard to appreciate what he has done with his hands… also, there really isn’t much value added for his animations. Actually, most flash sites featured here are all just eye candy… Again, people: Design isn’t JUST visual appeal. Whatever happened to functionality? Some of these sites gave me the lulz because of poor instructions and useless flourishes. The designers must have thought intuitiveness and functionality were suggestions.
50.

Louisa Nicholson (May 21st, 2009, 10:19 am)

The Science site, which you didn’t link to and can’t find via google, looks exactly like a rip of Joshua Davis’s style and site he did for a client. Not showcase worthy…
51.

Mark (June 1st, 2009, 5:46 pm)

Not a full flash site, but the use of the flash snowflake as a navigation and marketing too is interested at Link [www.polardesign.com]
52.

Eran Inbar (June 15th, 2009, 1:20 am)

if you like interesting flash website, check out my site (not fully completed):
Link [baiano.ifastnet.com]