- Sketch out GUI ideas on paper
- Draft out interactivity on paper
- Jot down animation and color ideas on paper
- Depending upon the project’s brief,
decide which apps best suit the job; Flash,
Freehand, Illustrator, LiveMotion, SwishMax
- Get image and text content from client
- Batch process images (resize to fit
layout, sharpen). Normally client wants
slide show, so I use slideshowpro; prepare
images and xml files accordingly
- Convert client text content into raw text,
and tag with variables for dynamic
functionality
- Construct background elements and main nav
in Flash, LiveMotion, Illustrator or Swishmax
(depends upon the job at hand) recently I’ve
been using Flash, Freehand, Illustrator and
Livemotion
- Script the nav MovieClips in the library
- Create the required number of HTML pages
for the site; prepare for Google and SEO
- Using Flash, Freehand, LiveMotion or Swishmax
create the rest of the graphical and
interactive content accordingly,
scripting where necessary, calling ecternal
text, external jpegs and swfs
- When the project involves video, create FLVs
of video elements
- I’m currently experimenting with the idea of
using After Effects and LiveType for extra
vector animation (very quick for producing
animation)
- QA the project across multiple browsers and
platforms that support the Flash Player (FP9
sucks BTW, not as stable or as reliable as
FP8 IMHO)
- Fix bugs
- Final QA
- Publish via FTP

I keep everything in vectors as much as I can. This means Illustrator 10, Freehand 11, LiveMotion 2 and Flash 8 Pro are my main tools.

I make vector shadows in AI and export them out as SWFs and they retain the vector info! (unlike LiveMotion that converts multilayers into bitmaps). On the Freehand side, I can’t stand the so-called “Shadow” Freehand Xtra, which is why I make my vector shadows in Illustrator 10.

I export multiple-paged Freehand files as a single SWF, calling them into action from a navigation movie clip in the main SWF made in Flash. The interoperability with these vector apps are endless. Absolutely enjoy the whole SWF authoring shebang.

I make multiple SWFs in Flash, calling each file into a different level. SWFs exported from AI, Freehand, LiveMotion and Swishmax are similarly called into action.

Freehand is rock solid, fast, flies like the wind and is very easy to work with. Just waiting to be converted into a “Flash Elements” application IMHO; just by merging Livemotion’s timeline with Flash export to FP9 functionality, would make this new Freehand an incredible Flash authoring tool. Well, IMHO that is.

I’ve removed CS1 - its performance is a chronic. I have reinstalled Photoshop 7, ImageReady 7, Illustrator 10 and Acrobat 6. Performance is much improved and I don’t miss any of the major new features in CS1 or 2.

I batch process images (and apply sharpening at the same time) with free utilities (Resize for Mac OS X and Image Resizer Power Toy from Microsoft - though the latter fom Microsoft cannot apply sharpening at the same time). I batch rename files using Automator (Mac) and Ant Renamer (PC) both are freely available, albeit one comes with the OS. When I need to correct levels in a batch I’ll use Photoshop or ImageReady actions.

I really enjoy working in ImageReady. I use it extensively when I need to work on individual images - those that don’t conform to any of the above batch processes.

..and that’s about it

we show the design concepts to our clients in PNG.

as for the code, we employ professional html-coders who do write the html code manually in textpad. No dreamweaver - at least not that I know about it as I’m not an html coder myself… we check code in IE, Mizilla and FireFox. After some discussions, we decided not to check it in Opera as statistics shows that it’s now used by few people.