ANSWERED AND CLOSED

[MarkUK]

No disrespect Brendan but...

firstly you must have been short on ideas to have to resort to putting down someone else hard work to make yourself look better in front of an audience, you want a selected Quote "Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit" springs to mind,

secondly to take a cheap shot at flying letters and then have this (and in my own opinion I have seen better) http://www.brendandawes.com/portfolio/interro_view.html as part of you portfolio does seem a little strange,

and last of all I do pity non technologically minded people such as your self, it must be fairly embarrassing to have four hobs and four knobs in front of you and not be able to figure out what to do, (you may well be the very person video plus+ was aimed at)

I am sure you have / will? create great things with flash but as I neither have the time nor the money to use Flash for web design (to me it is only a hobby) I will leave the slow loading complex interfaces to the <ahem> uber designers themselves,

it would be nice if (instead of criticism) you could programme a small and cheap piece of software that would do lots of the things that you don't find in SWiSH, then instead of flying letters people could get sick of whatever you thought of as good design, you see it is merely overuse that makes something good become staid and boring (remember the dancing baby)

and although I am not a Maria Carey fan, and can appreciate your comments on vocal overkill, the fact remains that she is a wide selling product and very likely richer than you will ever be (and probably more popular too! ) and in her case as in the case of SWiSH money talks,

I can't help but wonder if, a few years from now, when SWiSH becomes a great deal more popular and functional, these comments of yours will come back to haunt you?

still at least you will get a rise in the amount of hits to your site (for a while)

[almark]

Reply to my earlier email:

"Hi Mark,

I think some people have got the wrong end of the stick with the swish
thing. I actually said that I am not slagging off Swish, and we can't blame
the product for poor design. But it makes it all to easy to do trivial wavey
text effects and the like. The product does have it's uses, and I'm sure the
use of it will get more sophisticated over time. I used swish text to
represent all the other products. I wanted to provoke a reaction, which is
what I've done, so let the debate rage on.

Cheers."

At least he had the decency to reply, and I must assume that member Br3nny is Brendan. However he didn't address my concerns:

"I thought it was unfair and unprofessional to single out swish in your criticism of bad design. Swish can do much more than mere text effects. There are many other products that produce swf text effects (and only text effects) e.g. FlaX, Wildform SWFX and FLASHtyper at Flashkit.com However, you seem to ignore this and focus your comments on Swish. WHY?

I fully agree with your overall theme, but I think you showed poor judgement in only attacking Swish. The use of the logo was disgraceful. "

[smalco64]

Originally posted by velez
Any advertisement is good advertisement ... you should feel glad that they k-n-o-w the name SWISH.

Negative publicity for a great product has always had a positive impact on recognition and sales for that same product.

BTW
If Swish = Mariah Carey (musical tastes set aside) then
Swish = Great looking program;
Swish = Great performer;
Swish = > A few million (Aussie$ or US$) in sales ... at least that's what we all hope for you David.

You brought a great program at an affordable price to the public. B prepared for more ngeative publicity in the future, I would be scared too in their (MM) place

Keep up the great work !

[zankye1]

Hello David
Was bad to compare to Swish, but you don't need to mix things, because you have a fine product, and seems to me that version 2.0 is going to be a blast. A person with talent like you have should'nt be concern about some negative thoughts, if you know your potential, there's nothing to worry, and besides , if his comparing to Swish is..... because they start worry about your Fine product
Keep up the Good Work

Zankye

http://www.zankye.com

[instinct]

Almark,

You summed up my feeling's in your email.

I feel that Brendan should post an apology on the MM and his own site for attacking just SWiSH and not the many other 'text FX' programs just to make a clear and more balanced view.

Yesterday, I went to a free Macroimedia seminar in London in which they were promoting thier new products including flash 5. I could honestly say that Swish 1.51 can do at least 70% of what they 'demostrated' flash 5 could do. Funny how macromedia demostrated the easy and 'over used' move from here to there shape tweening.
If you ask me Macromedia (and maybe Brendan) will be pooping thier pants when SWiSH 2.0 is released. God knows what they will do by the time SWiSH gets to version 5.0

BTW did you know that the Flash forward 2000 London event cost (I Think) over £1000 to attend. I believe thats why the audience 'laughed out loud'...Snobbery comming in to play here I think....Just wait, they will be weeping when they see the future versions of Swish.. 2.0 and beyond!!!

Regards to All,

Rich.

[instinct]

Hey Brendan / Br3nny, look at this...

http://www.flashkit.com/board/showth...threadid=62784

These are 'some' of the entries to a SWiSH competition.

and not all from 'pros'like yourself (we all have to start somewhere!)

SWiSH....NOT JUST FOR TEXT FX!!!


Regards

Rich

[Aravindh]

Originally posted by MarkUK
No disrespect Brendan but...

firstly you must have been short on ideas to have to resort to putting down someone else hard work to make yourself look better in front of an audience, you want a selected Quote "Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit" springs to mind,

secondly to take a cheap shot at flying letters and then have this (and in my own opinion I have seen better) http://www.brendandawes.com/portfolio/interro_view.html as part of you portfolio does seem a little strange,

and last of all I do pity non technologically minded people such as your self, it must be fairly embarrassing to have four hobs and four knobs in front of you and not be able to figure out what to do, (you may well be the very person video plus+ was aimed at)

I am sure you have / will? create great things with flash but as I neither have the time nor the money to use Flash for web design (to me it is only a hobby) I will leave the slow loading complex interfaces to the <ahem> uber designers themselves,

it would be nice if (instead of criticism) you could programme a small and cheap piece of software that would do lots of the things that you don't find in SWiSH, then instead of flying letters people could get sick of whatever you thought of as good design, you see it is merely overuse that makes something good become staid and boring (remember the dancing baby)

and although I am not a Maria Carey fan, and can appreciate your comments on vocal overkill, the fact remains that she is a wide selling product and very likely richer than you will ever be (and probably more popular too! ) and in her case as in the case of SWiSH money talks,

I can't help but wonder if, a few years from now, when SWiSH becomes a great deal more popular and functional, these comments of yours will come back to haunt you?

still at least you will get a rise in the amount of hits to your site (for a while)

I fully agree MarkUK,i'm very new member.I don't know,whether i'm eligible to comment on this topic as i'm not any kind of web designer,(i'm printing engineer)and when i wanted to make a homepage as hobby in flash ,it was too expensive and complicated.But swish did what i wanted to create,may be i overused it(bcos i was driven crazy by swish)but i love swish.
So i think David don't have worry about this kind of comments.His talent speaks,as Swish and when v 2.0 hits market,people like me will be more crazy for swish.And i think no one can create such user friendly program like swish.
Nothing can beat swish.
Regards,Aravindh.

[jacksecret]

Hey, It's easy to knock things, to put people and their work down, to have at cheap joke at others expense. It's easy to be ignorant, self important, arrogant, obnoxious...
No mature human being is impressed by that though.

It's harder to be fair, constructive and appreciate that another human being has put hours of work into a brilliant program that many thousands like, appreciate and use regularly.

Everyones being really fair to him on this forum(and that says alot for the integrity of the people involved in the swish community)But let me tell you something...
Although I don't want to lower myself to the level of Dawes,

Ignore him and his opinion (which he's entitled to)
but as they say about opinions...
like ar*8holes, everybody's got one.

David - I say...It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile. Roll on Swish 2.0

[SwishY]

Hi Br3nny. Welcome to the Swish forum

I don't think that anyone here will disagree that sometimes the effects can be overdone, but that's not Swish's fault. I see no reason why Swish had to be singled out in your attack. However bringing more attention to Swish will only help with it's sales. Anyone who has ever tried Swish knows how user friendly it is, a claim which Flash can not make. And that, in a nut shell, is why Flash is losing sales EVERYDAY !!!

[cinder]

At the first FF2K, Mick and Dave from Fusion walked up and proclaimed "Who the hell needs Generator?" and proceeded to demonstrate that they can do everything it can with PHP and SQL.
Fusion also received applause and laughter from the audience.

I don't recall Macromedia posting discussion threads, or even complaining about it.

They can take a joke. They're not threatened.

He didn't mention those other products, because no one would know what they were, and therefore not get the joke. (yes, joke.)

Swish doesn't make bad design, people do.

//cinder

oh, and nice try debunking his validity as a developer by checking out his site and finding flaws. Perhaps each of you would also like to validate your opinion by posting all of your work here before you reply.

[paporter]

Originally posted by David Michie
Nah, its not Macromedia, they are just reporting events
from FlashForward London (this week I think).

I doubt anyone at MM is seriously concerned about Swish.
They spend all their time worrying about Adobe!

Cheers, David.

So can we assume that Macromedia has annoying nonrelated third party advertising on their site to stock their war chest for fighting the evil Adobe aggressor? (Really tackie!!!)

Paul

[johnie]

Don't forget Corel. They are big and they just realesed a Full Graphic design package that includes Corel Draw (Corel's version of Illustrator), Corel Paint (Corels version of Photoshop), and Corel Rave (Corels version of Live Motion- It's pretty easy to use too. I Just got done test driving it with runaware). The Corel Package retials between $487-$567 depending on which vendor you purchase from and has a $267 upgrade price tag. Why is this important? Why with Corel Graphic design studio 10 a user can handle all of their print and web graphics needs by purchasing 1 graphic package.

I don't really think this poke was motivated from MM but rather the Flash design comunity. Flash designers can charge $50-$120 US for Flash design. A Flash creation tool that is affordable and easy to learn would flood the design market with designers. This would meen that they couldn't charge as much and will further lead to the "Kid with Frontpage" effect that many Web designers are so afraid about.

You see the small business and the business comunity in general is mostly ignorant about the true workings of the internet. That is why Microsoft can advertise such cheesey products like Office 2000 as being 100% web compliant and charge $200-$500 (Note: Microsoft Office 2000 costs 200% more than Office 97 and you really don't get that much for the double price) more for the product and people will pay it. This reminds me of the Microsoft Comercial that goes like this:

Man: What type of web page do you want?

Woman: How about a Blue one.

Man: I was thinking more like a green one.

These types of comercials just further drive in my point that most people are clueless when it comes to the Web and Web Design.

The Web Designers themselves do not know that much either. Jacascript is not hard to learn so why do so many designers and design firms fork over money for Dream Weaver when other Free design tools are out there that can do the same thing with adding the java script with a text editor? DHTML can be produced in a free text editor and if you don't know much javascript there are many many many free Java Script code libraries?

Designers have monopolized on the fact that their clients do not know what is involved in web page creation so they often grossly over charge the client. I know of one firm in which the designer charged over $8,000 US and the designer stretched the web page creation process out to 6 weeks for 3 static 4 page designs with very simple text SWF intros.

I wouldn't blaim Macromedia for that jab but the Flash design comunity in general.

You should be proud that they took the time to slam Swish. It means that Swish has enough name recognition that they choose to pick on it instead of other another third party tool. Three low cost tools that are almost always overlooked;

Insane Flash Animator- This product is free to amature designers. Unregistered users may use the studio but when clicked the animation will take them to the insane tools web page. The studio comes with a sound recorder/ editor, Simple paint program to create Bitmaps, and a Flash animator with a roboust set of internal Vector Tools. Insane Flash animator can import simple SWf's and has 3-d effects. Flash 4 Action Scripts will be possible in the full version. The program is still in beta and has some bugs in it. The beta has free registration though. The interface is a bit confusing. Full version registration will be under $40.

Kool Moves- A SWF animation and WYSWIG text effects engine. The program auto morphs drawings, can import Kool Move created clips, has wide large selection of Bitmap and Vector format import, Allows users to create custom text effects and add it to its large text effects library, has a robust selection of internal drawing tools, Allows Flash 3 interactivity, and has a very easy to learn interface. Kool Moves tweens are auto optimized and it produces compact SWF movies. Kool Moves has a graphic app GUI and has little or no learning time if you are familure with graphical interfaces like Live Motion (Almost no learning time), Corel Rave (Almost no learning time), Corel Draw, Paint Shop Pro, Metafile companion, GIF Maker, ETC. The interface does however present problems to people who are use to a Flash like interface and typically people who are very used to this type of interface get frustrated and curse the designer. The program has current version of the program has two main flaws; 1. It only allows you to create small movies (Under 1 Meg- that's not that bad though if you think about it) and 2. The program only allows you to use Bitmap graphics as Fills for vector shapes. You can't import a PNG and rotate it in other words. Costs $30

Morph Ink- Their motto is "Animation for everyone". Morph ink allows you to create vector animations and exports to SWF, Animated GIF, and their own Format. Morph Ink works on a timeline interface and all the user has to do is draw a picture then set a new scene then change the picture in the next scene. The program auto morphs the picture for the user. Morph Ink has a very nice set of internal drwing tools that among other things will allow you to draw free form shapes thaen auto corrects them (Neat). Morph Ink 99 does not support fill while as Morph Ink 2000 (still in Beta) allows fils. Morph ink does not support sound or interactivity. Cost $30

To be honest I think the reason why they are picking on Swish is becuase Swish 2.0 looks to good and the F;lash designer comunity is afraid that Swish Designers will replace them. Why? Becuase of the low cost and and ease of use Swish there will be more Swish designers than Flash designers and the Swish designers (becuase of Supply side Economics) will charge less than Flash Designers.

[Hiprofile]

Originally posted by johnie

To be honest I think the reason why they are picking on Swish is becuase Swish 2.0 looks to good and the F;lash designer comunity is afraid that Swish Designers will replace them. Why? Becuase of the low cost and and ease of use Swish there will be more Swish designers than Flash designers and the Swish designers (becuase of Supply side Economics) will charge less than Flash Designers.

Well stated
It's simple economics!
As a desinger I now have the choice to use a program
that is quick easy to use and can get the job done in half the time. Never mind the price of the product.
Flash Designers would do more to learn and use swish.
As you get better you can up your prices.
Because I use swish and take less time to do the animation DOES NOT MEAN I CHARGE ANY LESS.
There will always be the kid down the street with Swish and Front page who can design a site for $100. So let em go to the kid and have it look like it was done for $100
This same thing killed the graphic design market that i was a part of here in Toronto. Everybody who could use any graphic program became a graphic designer. Soon the prices to design flyers business cards etc.. had little or no markup. I left graphic design and continued into web design i tried to suggest the change to other designers at the time 3 years ago but they were so stuck on doing flyers.
Now many of them are flocking to the web.
I think the web is so lucrative because the Mark ups and the rates are so high right now. But that will change and has changed. As a designer you have to get better skills and continue to increase and upscale your clientelle.

In a mountain of sand a diamond shines through. Good Design Skills will always show through.

The problem with Br3nny comments is that he was making bad design skills synonymous with Swish. And this is not the case.

Cheers for you comment on all the programs out there can can create swf's. Swish is still the best and ver 2.0 is gonna kick some serious but
My 2 cents!
Peace Yo!

[Hiprofile]

Originally posted by johnie
Don't forget Corel. They are big and they just realesed a Full Graphic design package that includes Corel Draw (Corel's version of Illustrator), Corel Paint (Corels version of Photoshop), and Corel Rave (Corels version of Live Motion- It's pretty easy to use too. I Just got done test driving it with runaware). The Corel Package retials between $487-$567 depending on which vendor you purchase from and has a $267 upgrade price tag. Why is this important? Why with Corel Graphic design studio 10 a user can handle all of their print and web graphics needs by purchasing 1 graphic package.

Johnie is Corel Rave part of Corel 10
I am avid Corel user since version 2.5
I get all kind's jokes and you should use Illustrator
But I am much more comfortable and can do and have been doing more with Corel.
I currently use Corel for print as well
I made My company Logo, Box Design, Flyers, cards,
Site layout (design in Photoshop), and Manual covers all in Corel
http://www.edisoft.com
http://www.paraord.com

Corel also has WAY more than Adobe will ever have in the form of Vector clipart. All of their vector clipart i have from all the versions from 5 up to version 8 are amazing and can easily be used for many swf animations.
You can also purchase the Corel Gallery CD's with 10,000 to 1, 000, 000 piecers of vector clipart. Untapped potential in my opinion.
Currently I am exporting out from Corel and from Swish to bring into flash but if Corel has a animation program and I can also import vectors from Corel into Swish Ver 2.0 then I may not need Flash at all
Thanks for any info on Corel 10
Peace!
Pmartin
http://www.hiprofile.com

[gjkillam]

Hey Amigo!...where ya been?
Does this mean you're back on a permanent basis?...good to see you back!...ziggy

[johnie]

Yes. Corel Rave is only available with Corel Graphic Studio 10. The only way to test the product is with Run A Ware or other such service.

[cinder]

A program does not make you a good designer.

[almark]

Good to see you! I see you are trying to bring some balance.

[Br3nny]

OK, lets not get silly talking about bringing lawyers in - is that the answer to everything? Can't we have a sensible adult debate about things without it getting personal.

I've said it once but I'll say it again, I did NOT slag off Swish the product, but the bad use, I also did the same with Flash. If people want to misinterpret that, then fine, you do that, I know what I said - I was there.

It seems to me that it's not exactly balanced having a debate about this in swish forum - lions den springs to mind - maybe you would like to open it up a bit at:

http://www.dreamless.org/ubb/Forum1/HTML/002439.html

Bren.

[jrswebdesign]

Hmmmm - opening it up meaning inviting a load of other up their own arses designers to have a jab @ a great product - idiots. I have respect for your work, you are probably better than I will ever be, but that does not give you the right to slag of anyone you want.

"I'm so clever cos I just spent 2 days doing an animation in flash when I could have have done it in 15 mins with SWiSH."

Cheers,