Giving Thanks
Published 11/24/2022
I miss Flash. Yes, I am speaking about the animation software made popular by Macromedia, then courted off to Adobe to die a slow death as prophesied by Steve Jobs. If you’re a dev or designer, please don’t bring up Adobe Animate. You know why, and I know why; just leave it there.
Have you ever found yourself in the middle of a conversation with yourself, or someone and just needed to break out into a song of what you were feeling? That’s what flash gave a lot of us years ago. Unfortunately, I think this is something that Gen-Z will never get to appreciate, especially during the ‘early stages’ aka web 1.0 stages of the internet. Flash gave an avenue of a new found freedom to design websites and experiences with almost dream-like scapes.
I remember one of the first sites that drew me to Flash was designed and developed by Yasuto Suga (RayOfLight.net). It wasn’t amazing cgi graphics or infinite amounts of content, but it was beautiful. The serenity of the site was inspiring, and seeing such a motivating piece of flash artwork had always moved me to design and implement something equally as thoughtful. This something I would hope would give someone hope, or breathe life into them to want to build something of their own, triggered with the tranquility of the moment it represented, and invoke a new beginning of perseverance for them.
The internet isn’t that way anymore, it doesn’t inspire creatively. At least for me it doesn’t.
There is an invisible storm going on within me, that needed to get one last, personal interweb experience out to showcase something of me, just to at least show that ‘I was here’. I remember the days when I would participate in a ‘May 1st Reboot’, which is where designers, businesses, etc would release a new website that would represent them going forward on May 1st, collectively. It was a day of rebirth for so many experiences. I miss those days too, they held a lot of energy. There were times I would even stay up until 6am in the morning to complete what was needed so I can pull down the curtains on new work for the world to see.
The new site isn’t that. There is no new work on it. It is my own illustrated scenery of metaphors of my life, moments that have happened, and important people who exist. This was emotional for me to work on, and I struggled through a good portion of it. Struggling beyond design and code, but how much to show. Every element means something. I thought back to generational strains, to regrets of simple things like not learning my favorite instrument, to my heart beating to keep loved ones safe.
This is my last ‘personal site’ I will ever build. It isn’t perfect, there could be more done to it to keep your attention and ‘wow’ you, but it was given the energy that I had, that I could combat thought to get my point across, and walk away from. I need a large full screen to immerse you in as much as possible, so it will work on your phone, but it’s made for your computer/laptop screen.
If you’ve read this far, thank you for listening. I truly appreciate it.
To my friends, family and to all of you reading this: Persevere.
Farewell.