Flash Boom Blog by Jake Carah

I could tell what I think about the in class procedure for flash that we did in lab last week, but it wouldn't have that wow factor. Sure I could tell you how I thought the user-friendly design of all adobe products seem to be inviting me to mess around and fiddle with stuff to make it look cool or dare I say sexy. I'm sure that I would just rail on and on about how useful it is to compress a lot of info into an interactive graphic but that to me just wouldn't convey the awesome that is Flash.

No, I want to type about the new wave. The "Awesome Journalism" if you will. The journalism they don't tell you about in the world of dying print. Flash, what an awesome name for a design program. Honestly, it feels as though ever since I told my friends and family I wanted to go to school for journalism I would be bombarded by negative guffaws about why I would not have a job when I graduated or even such comments as "Journalism, what Journalism, don't you know that doesn't exist anymore." Well to the nay-sayers and pontificators of pablum of the contrary, Journalism is Alive and I believe Flash is the template of the revival. Seriously, what is more futuristic than interactive text? What is more healthy for the planet than something that won't be thrown away or pollute the earth and not tear down forests?

The limits of flash are only the limitations of skill on behalf of the designer/journalists and the possibilities to provide stunning arrays of content to audiences. These avenues are just beginning to be explored in all sorts of remarkable ways. Yet, to clarify, I don't think Flash should replace a solid nut graph, or to use Flash as the major template for a piece. However, it can accentuate and involve the audience more than just simple text and for that I see Flash is for Journalism what 3D plat-forming was for Video games, a simply awesome development.