Animated banner advice required

I've just had an email from a customer of mine who is looking to update his site with an animated banner across the top of the site. Personally I don't like animated banners as I think it makes the site look cheap but - hey - the customer is paying and that's what he wants.

What is the consensus on the best form of animation? Flash? Animated gif? Other?

I don't want anything that is too resource heavy, it needs to be cross browser compatible and no plug in required.

Any help would be gratefully received.

Cheers,

Mike

 

Well using Macromedia Flash you can create very professional looking animated advertisements, however these would be in SWF format and require the user to have Macromedia Flash plug-in although most households (i'd say probs 90%) would have this you said no plug-ins, so i believe the next option is probably gif. You can also use Macromedia Flash to create gif's also and this is what I personally would use as i am not experienced/tried any other program.

 

I just use Photoshop and ImageReady for animated banners.

 

If the animation part is not too complex then go for gif animation. I agree with wd_2k6, the swf file requires Flash player plug-ins so the better option is gif animation.

 

To keep the animated gif/swf looking good just dont loop the animation. That is the biggist thing i see people doing and it gets on my nerves.

 

Thanks for all your great advice, guys. I'm with you on the looping, Tekntoant - I think that's what cheapens animations for me.

The customer dropped me a line this morning saying he already has a .flv file...Don't know quite what to do.

My gut feeling is steer clear of Flash because of a) compatibility and b) speed.

 

Why don't you try this, make a flash banner, save the .fla file and give it to the client for revision purposes, and export the file as an .swf file. Then export the file as a .gif file. You may have to go into your publish settings and change the settings for this option to appear. Than you can look for a script that will detect flash and what not, and if it doesn't detect the flash, make it load the gif file instead. All problems solved?

 

I've got to put my hands up here and say my Flash experience is limited. I've never liked Flash - I don't think I've ever seen a site where Flash has been of benefit to the user. Sure it gives nice bells and whistles but content is King and Flash simply doesn't work for me so I don't know how to do that but surely the gif is likely to be either a massive file or poor quality.

 

That's just it though, gifs are often poor quality anyway, and flash files are always huge. If they just want a banner, all you need is a background, do some stunning text effects, no matter what it is like, and impress them. You don't need to have too much knowledge to use Flash, just make it like you would a gif banner with a nice background, etc. Copy it into Flash, and look at a tutorial if you need to. You should try to respect what your client wants, and the gif file won't be too big, and if it is, you can always make a gif in the software of your choice, but I would try to work with what the client wants.

Maybe you could post up here what the client wants, and maybe somebody will do the design for you?

 

Cheers, Mike. I'll wait to see what he sends through and see where we go from there. The customer is prime focus, of course. If they want a Flash banner then that's what they'll get. He's of the same opinion as me regarding the overall usefulness of Flash so probably wouldn't be too averse to going down another route

Thanks for all your help