Nifty Tips for Your Free Flash Template Design

After discussing the basic principles of Flash template design, I feel that I can offer a few more creative ideas on how to revamp your web design. These are a few ideas that many of our clients have found useful as they created their own website.

1- Creating ‘Swap Images’ - Swap images refers to images that change into alternative images as you hover over different buttons. This is a fun technique that will liven your page without creating an overload of imagery and movement. ‘Swap’ can be easily designed using Fireworks.

2- Using Rollover Images - Rollover images are images that change color when the mouse rolls over them. Web designers love using these rollover images whenever they can because they are very simple to create and add some elegance to the web design.

3- Text Rollovers - If you don’t want to upload too many images onto your website, to prevent a slow loading time you can use text rollovers. A text rollover is similar to an image rollover except the effect is applied to texts. You see this very often in menus, such as our main menu on the left.

4- Eye Catching Graphics - Try out the different effects to help boost your website’s graphics and make it unique. There are different effects, such as bevel, feathering, glow, shadow, adjust color effects and others that can be gently applied to accentuate the graphics appearance and make your free Flash template more attractive and unique. Be careful not to overdo it.

5- Using Tables Creatively - Use tables to organize your page and materials. I recommend using tables because they don’t take a long time to load which is crucial in the online world, they can be customized in many different ways and are easy to work with. Using tables often helps you solidify the web page layout, and helps keep you in the format.

6- Using Negative Space - Use spacing to avoid creating a cramped and overloaded website. The amount of spacing you use will often times determine the impression your website leaves on visitors. For example, a lot of spacing between the elements and between the texts conveys an impression of elegance, high end products. Similarly, overcrowded websites, that don’t keep the need for ‘negative’ space in mind, may leave an impression that they are amateur and not quite professional. It’s all a matter of taste and quantity at the end of the day, and of course there are many more elements that go into a design. Keep in mind, that sometimes, less is more.

7- Creating a Directory - If you are creating a large site and you foresee that it will continue to grow, it’s not a bad idea to create a directory. Directories may help your visitors find their way around your website (very often they are called ‘site maps’ for that particular reason) and just as importantly, they help the search engines index all your pages. It’s basically a win-win situation. Websites that make a visitor feel comfortable navigating the pages and provide a good sense of orientation will always be chosen over, sophisticated, complex websites, no matter how cool the graphics! Remember that.