Overview
Some people experience Joshua Davis's work and their lives are never the same. Ever put red food coloring in your eyes to see what the world looked like? Ever bake a painting to see how a little chaos and physics can affect art? Ever have a web site freeze you in your tracks, then draw you in for hours? Intrigued? Read this book. Flash to the Core: An Interactive Sketchbook by Joshua Davis is much more than motion graphics seen through the eyes of a designer who's in a class by himself. It's a how-to book on making yourself a better designer. Reverse-engineer technology and reassemble it with your own balance of chaos and creative reason. And see what you getSynopsis
Coverage is not critically tied to a particular rev of Flash. Flash to the Core: An Interactive Sketchbook is about the creative process and what someone like Joshua Davis can teach the world about taking Flash design and development to new extremes.Part one is all about Joshua Davis, the artist: his philosophies, his approach to Flash workflow, how he works with clients, how he explains and explores the world around him through his creative approach to Flash web design, animation and motion graphics.
Part two is about the work itself: 12 Flash-based projects Joshua has created in the past year. Some of these have won awards, others have been nominated for awards. Each project is a narrative and deconstruction, with the code used in the project included and explained.
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
The Barnes & Noble ReviewForgive the cliché, but this is “extreme” Flash. Nobody has taken Flash further than Joshua Davis -- creatively and technically. In his words, “I have really tried to bring Flash to its knees.... It’s only in breaking things -- in the anomalies -- that I find the accidents that in the end become techniques.” If you’ve ever been to his praystation.com, you know he means it.
In Flash to the Core, Davis shows you where he’s coming from, and where he’s taking Flash now. Whether you have the luxury of creating Flash art, or you’re simply putting bread on the table, this book can help you find your own personal breakthroughs.
Even his practical tutorials (on the Timeline, for instance) are about better ways to imagine in Flash. But it’s the techniques that are really amazing. For example, great art demands surprise: Davis shows you how to use the randomness available through ActionScript to surprise even yourself. There are chapters on fades (Davis is a past master on these); on friction and collisions; on Z-sorting; and on user interfaces (Davis does not buy the lowest-common-denominator approach).
Flash to the Core is Flash for the future. Bill Camarda
Bill Camarda is a consultant, writer, and web/multimedia content developer. His 15 books include Special Edition Using Word 2000 and Upgrading & Fixing Networks For Dummies®, Second Edition.