Flash - from humble beginnings to a global platform - a brief history
Adobe Flash™ has grown from humble beginnings into the premier internet technology for delivering high quality animation and multimedia. Flash is so widely supported (most recent estimates suggest over 96% of web users have it installed) that it seems hard to imagine the web before Jonathan Gay brought us this essential tool.Flash began life as Future Splash animator way back in the early 90's and eventually Macromedia saw it's potential and acquired the product, renaming it Flash. Jonathan and his small team came too and the rest, as they say, is history.
Flash started out as a vector based drawing / animation tool but has since evolved into a slick and powerful platform for delivering rich web content including streamed audio and video. It's core actionscript language gives developers the opportunity to build complex and extraordinary web applications, as well as catering to more traditional animators and designers needs. Notoriously difficult to truly master, the effort pays handsome dividends to those brave souls who stick with it and learn the application well.
The influence of Flash vector style animation has been huge - graphic design and TV advertising have often appropriated web style animation and there are thiving communities of animators, designers and developers all making use of Flash techniques and technology.
Globally Artists and creatives of many hues have embraced Flash as a means to breath life into their creations, often to stunning effect. The next time you see a kick-ass animated web banner (The Guardian online newspaper here in the UK often features good examples) you can bet it will be Flash based. Some of the most stunning and incredible websites ever created have only been possible thanks to the creativity of those early pioneers and the vision of companies like Macromedia. Now that Flash has been bought by Adobe, the Flash community awaits exciting new directions and developments in the history of this prodigal son of the Intenet age and hopes it will continue to develop as a cutting-edge platform with almost limitless possibilities.
You can see many examples of integrated Flash websites in our design galleries or in our clients listing.