Flash and Swish are providing some of the best tools for designers who want to take the website past the static and the visual. Motion and sound allow lots of creativity. I visited the portfolio of Oren Farhi at http://www.orizens.com and enjoyed the works there. I asked Oren for an interview.

Where are you located? “My Name is Oren Farhi. I am 27.5 years old, engaged to a lovely girl named Adi - a Jewel in Hebrew. Currently I live in Israel, in a small town near Tel-Aviv, though I plan to go abroad if it’ll be possible.”

What are your areas of specialization? “I am a web designer/developer - some refer to it as ‘deseloper’ - dealing with various areas related to the web: Flash sites, Flash applications, html/css sites, programming with php and actionscript, designing full websites templates.”

What are you most known for on the web? “My website in its flash version, known as ‘http://www.orizens.com‘, is known around the world and has had quite a lot of entrances from around the world - according to google analytics. Moreover, I started my flash knowledge with the great software Swishmax and have been a forum moderator for about 2 years in the international swish-db help forum. Afterwards, I asked for swishzone’s permission to run a support forum for it’s products in Hebrew – thus – I am known in Israel as the founder of the only swish Hebrew support forum. Some of my known clients includes a real estate company working in Cyprus and the UK, a rock band form Las Vegas and a local big main health service provider.”

Where do you blog or work at? “Currently, I work in a web 2 development company which is located in Israel and deals with clients all over the world. I’m also keeping my freelance services.”

What tool-set do you choose to use in your work? What do you believe the benefits are? “I use various tools for achieving my goals. I use the great notepad for coding html, css, php, javascript. I use Swishmax and Flash for creating Flash websites/apps. Recently, I took Flex 3 Beta for a test drive. I use photoshop for most of my graphic works, various 3d softwares - cinema4d, Bryce. I usually test websites on various browsers to assure compatibility and consistency in the workflow.For web marketing I use google analytics - which is awesome! and which gives me a wide angle of analyzing the traffic for my websites and optimize them according to the information.”

How did you get into web design? “Since I was a little boy, I liked drawing. After learning swishmax, I felt the need of going into web design and learning concepts, tools and trends.”

Do you remember the very first website you designed? “Oh yeah. . . it was awful. I used wysiwug editor - geocities hosting - as well as MS Frontpage and decided to make a website for my music compostions and my bryce creations.”

Where do you get your art for these webpages? “Whenever I go on a trip, I take my camera with me and take lots of pictures on every detail that my eyes catch and sometimes I use these pictures to create the elements I need for my projects. Of course, I use google to search for pictures or elements that I might need for a certain project, and I enhance it to fit to my project.”

What is your general opinion on current trends in design and development, such as Web 2.0 and AJAX, etc.? “Current trends are very welcome! The Ajax trend has raised the role of our web to a higher level. Web 2.0 trend is trying is to make the web a better place, more intuitive for us users - I refer to anyone who uses the web - for a good cause, of course.”

Why do you think CSS design is becoming so popular among web designers? “CSS is easy, neat and very flexible for updating and maintaining designs. It gives a designer great control over the design. Besides, it is somehow easy to learn and get into it. Moreover, one can achieve some pretty cool ideas!”

What will be the next big development in webpage design? “It’s not that easy to predict but when I’m trying to think of it I look at what the big companies are offering for us: Adobe’s Flex for complex UI’s, Adobe’s Thermo, MS Silverlight. Developing complex UI’s is a pretty strong trend at the moment and I also see the use and thought of 3D concepts in this area.”

What do you think about Flash technology? “I Love Flash! Flash is an awesome technology. Especially since the last release of the flash player 9 and after Adobe introduced the roadmap and some of the abilities which are to come with the next release. Flash is a great source of inspiration for me. Moreover, It is crossed browser and crossed platforms.”

What are the advantages and disadvantages of using Flash? “Flash is smooth, strong for developing rich ui’s and web applications with the new Actionscript 3 engine, creating interesting ideas and concepts and visualize them in a smooth way. Flash files are not searchable but as for today, there’s a workaround for this issue and not all websites have to be ‘that’ searchable’. I am referring for web applications and integrated ‘html + flash’ websites.”

If you could eliminate one trend from the Web, what would it be? Why? “As for designing html/css + javascript websites, browser comptability is a tough issue.”

What do you think of XHTML 5 and JavaScript standardization under W3C? “If every vendor of browsers will follow w3c’s standarts, I think it will benefit everyone who’s using the web.”

What language do you use for coding? Why? “In my opinion and experience, PHP is great for server side projects and server side actions. I use it quite often and integrate it on my work with flash’s Actionscript. I use Actionscript for my flash projects or any kind of project’s which requires the user’s interaction. I also use CSS for designing simple pages which are rendered as a html code.”

Tell us about your use of colors in your designs. “I usually follow some of the concepts of the Color Theory - not more than 5 colors for a design.”

What are your sources of inspiration? “I like to use adobe’s Kuler web application for catching some nice color combinations. I also surf some web galleries such as: cssmania.com, templatemonster.com, dailyslurp.com, designmeltdown.com.”

What are your favorite website designs that you did and did NOT design yourself? “I like the various designs which are shown in the templatemonster.com website. I also like the css zen garden project designs. One of my favorite designs is my website conversion to a css zen garden design template.”

What are your interests and dislikes in webpage design? “My interests are creating special and nice to the eye design. Such a design that will make the user to go on and exploring it to its little details. One of my dislikes in webpage design when it’s getting too ‘minimal design’ – as in text only websites.”

What were the mistakes you learned from most while in the web design industry? “Well, we all know that the customer is always right – because that’s what they want. Don’t try to explain the tech stuff and how much time thinking you are spending on a project – try to talk with them in terms they feel comfortable with.”

What is it you most like and dislike about being a web designer? “I like it when you the control and freedom to create. I dislike the situation when a project changes more than 3 times after approving the design in each time.”

What blogs and magazine articles would you suggest reading for knowledge? “I am subscribed to various RSS feeds that I find useful for areas I want broaden my knowledge and ones which are being updated at least once a week or so. So, I suggest to use a RSS reader and while surfing the net, be aware to various websites that you can benefit form.”

What advice would you give to beginning web designers? “Stay tuned to the trends of the web and the new technologies which are being released.”

Thank you Oren for your experiences and ideas.

Happy Holidays!
Arthur Browning