Beauty is in the eye of the beholder: A concept that is liked by one person may not be liked by another person. Due to the subjective nature of both aesthetic and conceptual design, Flashden employs certain quality standards that we expect files to achieve before we accept them into our library. This quality control mechanism not only differentiates FlashDen from other micro stock sites, but it also attempts to maintain a consistent quality of files that all our customers can rely on.
Why does design matter on FlashDen?
If your file does not meet our guidelines, there is a chance it won’t be accepted. But beyond that, good quality file design matters to you because it can be the difference between 0 sales and 20 sales. It can be the difference between 10 sales and 100 sales.
File design can also affect the price of your file. If your file is exactly the same as someone else’s as far as functionality is concerned, but your file is visually more appealing, it’s likely that your file will be priced slightly higher than your competitor’s file. More sales at a higher price based on the quality of your file is going to work in your favor.
You may have a killer concept and you may be a whiz with AS3, but if you do not present your file in the best possible way, you are only shooting yourself in the foot by reducing the opportunity to maximize sales of your file.
What makes a well-designed file?
There are several design factors that determine if your file will be accepted into the Flashden library. Such factors, in no particular order, include: (more…)
Flash is ubiquitous with providing website development a certain amount of flair and interactivity that cannot be achieved with normal development tools like HTML and CSS. While it is true that JavaScript libraries like jQuery and MooTools have put Flash in the backseat in a few areas, the truth of the matter is that somethings like video and advanced animated effects simply cannot be done any other way.
We have Macromedia and Adobe to thank for that. The penetration levels that the Flash Player enjoys today make it a defacto platform for all the video sharing sites around {YouTube probably would not exist if it weren’t for Flash!}.
The main gripe that a lot of web users had with Flash in the past was the way that developers and designers used it. I can’t tell you how many times I had to wait for an “intro” to load before I could get to the actual content on a site. Thankfully someone thought about the “skip intro” button {or not doing intro’s at all} and things got a bit better. But, there is still a bad taste left in a lot of mouths, especially as internet connections weren’t really at the standards we have now.
But the field has changed today, broadband connections are rising on a daily basis which means people are even MORE impatient. 15 – 30 seconds, that’s all you have before someone decides to go away. From my experience I would have to say the main thing any web designer/developer should give the most attention to is – Usability.
I’m sure the other authors on this blog have given you many valuable tips on a lot of subjects, I would like to offer you some on how you can expand the reach of Flash to take it to the next level, and hopefully more sales.
Sales people like to say someone gets closed every call, either you close the client on your idea or they close you on theirs. I’ve heard every excuse from internet marketers to high-level CEO’s why they don’t want to use Flash as their platform and up until recently I let myself believe they had a legitimate reason to hack together a site with CSS rather than Flash it out. There were always two specific objections I couldn’t overcome: SEO and deep-linking.
Today I broke open Gaia for the first time and it’s literally changed my world and the world of every client who from this day will have to deal with my maniacal zealotry. Gaia should put a stop to all the whining and complaining done by those who would choose another platform for “SEO compatibality”. But don’t expect by just using the framework the game is over, you’ve got to explain you’re reasons and if I’m going to roll I want to be armed to the teeth with loads of quality information.
Under the hood Gaia gives you is a simple system for Deep-Linking and SEO via “tight integration” with SWF Address. Two things I routinely pass over because of the time they take to implement properly. With Gaia I was able to build out a complete site framework in about 6 hours with an animated nav that supports deep-linking. It’s just sweet!
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Anyone who knows FlashDen well will likely know Bobocel. For those of you who have recently become an author or are considering it, he has started a great thread in the forums entitled Passive Income on FlashDen For Top Authors. There is some fantastic advice here from one of the most successful authors in FlashDen history. A slew of other top authors have also given their opinions and tips (including RimV, MichaelHejja, FlashJunkie, Chuckanucka, and more), so if you want to use this holiday period to create a great passive income model check it out!
Happy Thanksgiving to all our US members! We hope you all have a wonderful holiday. 
There are people doing the same thing you’re doing and you don’t know them and you can’t see them, but they’re out there. When you’re on a roll, they’re on a roll. When you get stuck, they get stuck. And of the million or so flash developers in the world one or two have been stuck in the mud, same as you.
How does one account for such an occurance? What I mean is, how do you realize you’re in someone else’s shoes while wearing them? How can you tell if you’re in the presence of a million ghosts?
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I’ve been writing a couple of articles over at FreelanceSwitch about the benefits of selling stock and thought I’d mention the second one in particular, here as a good reference for FlashDen authors:
Like anything, selling stock is something that you get better at over time. In my job working on ThemeForest, FlashDen and AudioJungle I get to see a lot of the things people do to maximize their income, some of them are quite ingenious. Since it benefits us if we have clever authors on our sites and it benefits Freelancers interested in selling stock, I’ve put together my top tips for selling well on stock sites…
Read the rest of the article at FreelanceSwitch
After seeing the Discovery Channel documentary on the making of Spore I’d like to nominate Will Wright for smartest person on earth. He’s the creative genius behind the Sim City franchise, The Sims and now Spore. What can Flash designers, animators & developers learn from Spore? Lots! Frank Gibeau, president of Electronic Arts’ Games, states “What’s so beautiful about Spore is that it’s extremely malleable… you could take it to different platforms, like playstation, Wii, and flash games…” Seriously, Spore in Flash? (more…)
While tinkering with Flash 10 and anxiously awaiting the release of Flash CS4 and Gumbo (Flex 4) I stumbled upon Degrafa. Degrafa is a flex graphics framework that allows you to markup graphics in MXML. It’s super easy to use and comes with some awesome samples. Use it to make your site beautiful and integrate it with your Flash Den components. (more…)
Have you ever wanted to create a pixel font or a TrueType font but did not know how to do it? Or perhaps you’ve tried but become frustrated with the process? Then meet your new friend, FontStruct!
FontStruct, from the creators of FontShop is a powerful yet super-easy to use online Flash application that allows you to quickly create fonts for free. And once you’ve finished creating your very own font, why not upload it to Flashden and sell it?!
The beauty of FontStruct is the intuitive, usable interface. Within minutes you can quickly create attractive characters and then save them as .ttf files which can be used on both Mac and PC platforms.
Almost 700 fonts at the time of writing have been created on FontStruct and are available to download for personal or commercial projects. Here are some useful links to get you started:
FontStruct guide to making pixel fonts
Font gallery
Screencast overview
FAQs
Good luck creating your masterpieces and don’t forget you have the opportunity to sell your complete font files on Flashden!
There are so many fantastic files added to Flashden each and every day that it can sometimes be difficult to find what you are looking for. Furthermore, it may be that you cannot locate what has recently been added. But fear not! This article will not only help you understand a little more about how Flashden organizes all of our content (and how users navigate it), but hopefully you will discover some cool tips you can use to get to what you want, faster!
The Flashden home page is the perfect and most obvious place to begin. Whether or not you are logged in or out, the home page features some great ways to see what’s new.
Homepage > Recent
The “Recent” tab in our “Start Browsing” section at the bottom of the home page randomly displays 21 out of the 100 most recently added files. This is a great way to get an overview of new content on Flashden. There are a couple of new rules associated with this section, which are: Recent files are only shown from authors who sell their files exclusively on Flashden. So it pays to be an exclusive author for your favorite stock Flash site! That said, we understand this may not be fair to new users, which is why we apply another rule: New users who have sold less than $500 worth of files (i.e. they are not yet eligible to become exclusive) also have the opportunity of having their new files appear on the home page randomly.
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