Flash is a great tool to create stylish sites. Its strength is not only in its animation potentials, but also in its coding possibilities. And that’s where the problems start; the possibilities are literally countless, so you can easily get lost.
I’ve been working with Flash for quite some time now and always have the same problem. How can I design this site? What kind of graphics and animation should I use?
So here is a list with the necessary 5 steps every flash designer should make, before opening flash.

1. Study your subject

What is the site about? If it’s about cooking you might need brighter, warmer colors. If it’s about a hospital you should probably go with tranquiler, softer hues.
The ideal starting point is a small research. Google your subject and see what wikipedia writes. Sure, you know what cooking is all about, but just a single word might give you a bright idea. You’ll also see other sites about the subject. How is the cooking niche designed?
This first step will give you an impression about structure: should you comply with basic usability rules or start doing something more experimental?

2. Draw inspiration

The second step is about construction. There are thousands of flash sites out there; all of them potential inspiration sources. See what other designers have done with their work, you might get some great ideas. The resources I always take a look before getting into work are:

• 65 Excellent Flash Designs. This is a very thorough list of Smashing Magazine. It doesn’t get updated or anything like that, but it covers a wide range of styles; simple, 3d, interactive. Start from here and click your way around.
• Best Flash Animation Site. This one is really cool. It is updated constantly, with content voted by the community. Every week top flash sites are suggested. Be careful though; you might spend hours of your time here.
• The best designs. I guess the title says it all. It currently has a database of 788 submitted Flash designs and is constantly expanding. It is also sorted by designer, so check your favourites!

3. Typography

Flash designs are mostly visual experiences and you might think that text is not that important. I mean, dynamic texts are usually plain *.txt (unless you are a jedi and implement css styles). But exactly because flash is so concentrated on the visual you should concentrate on the typography.
The fonts you choose for your buttons can play a decisive role on the design of the site. So choose wisely.

• Urban Fonts. Huge list of free fonts and dingbats. If you’re having trouble finding something, there’s always a forum to help you out.
• Dafont. One more extensive list of fonts and dingbats. You can also search by author, an option that I personally like.
• Neat Fonts. A variety of interesting, strange fonts if you want to add a new flair to your site.
• I love typography. A great blog, which will introduce you to the basic rules of typography. Valuable resource.

4. Photography

Spend lots of time choosing for the image. I don’t say, that you have to use images, but if you do, spend lots of time choosing them. Remember flash designs are concentrated on the visuals.

• OpenPhoto. High quality photos for free. The site is still under development, but it surely has great stuff.
• Stock.xchng. Free stock photo site at its best. So many categories that you’ll start crying.
• Stockvault. They love to share photos and they show it!
• Everystockphoto. 2 million photos to choose from. Let’s hope it’s enough.

5. Learn the code

So you saw this great site, with this crazy 3d design, responding to the movement of the mouse and the movement of your eyes. You want to do that too!
The problem with flash, is that the code is hidden. If you don’t have the *.fla file, you can forget it. But before giving up, there are many tutorial sites, which can teach you that great stuff! Some of my favourites:

• Kirupa. Tutorials for novice or advanced programmers. Great starting point.
• Flashperfection. Tutorials divided according to your preferences. 3d, animation, math physics, games, etc. My absolute favourite.
• Gotoandlearn. Yes, go there now. That’s a videoblog with great tutorials. Great, great stuff.
• Actionscript.org. The forum on this site is also its strength. Actionscript can really get into your nerves. You try everything out and it just doesn’t work. Then you come to the forum and they say something like “try changing the instance name” - and it works. Join this community, it will help you out A LOT!