This week we decided to change location of our author interview and so we slid very slowly to the left a little to another Envato marketplace, arguably the largest of their network of websites that sell digital goods, ActiveDen. “FlashDen” as it was previous called (Envato had to change the name due to pressure from Adobe who own the ‘Flash’ trademark) has been a very successful site since launch. Selling every kind of component, pre-made flash websites and animation plus some excellent flash based solutions, ActiveDen is the jewel in Envato’s crown and who better to interview than none other than FlashJunkie. A strong community member, reviewer and author, he provides us with an excellent chance to see the process from both sides of the fence.

FlashJunkie managed to squeeze an interview in to his busy days of writing action script, designing the UI of his next projects and skipped a few reviews (joke!) to sit down for a few moments.

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Greetings Jay, thanks for sparing a few minutes to introduce yourself and explain to our readers who you are and what you do. First off tell us a little about who you are and how you got in to creating flash components, templates and other wonderful goodies:

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Hey Jonathan, you are very welcome. Well, as we have already established my name is Jay but I am widely known online as ‘FlashJunkie’ a name which I plucked out of the air when signing up to ActiveDen in April 2007 (or FlashDen as it was back then) I chose this name because ever since I opened Flash for the first time, I was hooked.

I found Flash in 2007 when after stumbling from dead end job to dead end job I decided I wanted to do something fun for a living, so without so much as a scrap of knowledge on anything to do with design or programming I applied for a website development position at a local web development firm. I still to this day don’t know how I got the job but I’m glad I did, on my first day I was sat down in front of a PC with Flash 8 installed on it, I was given an hour’s rundown of how flash works from a colleague and a folder full of tutorials, followed swiftly by my first project and a 4 week deadline. I worked hard, hit the deadline and haven’t looked back since.

A few months later I found ActiveDen, I signed up and for a few months I stayed in the shadows, checking how things worked and using existing files to get an idea of what was widely accepted as good design, I started uploading a few truly dreadful files and over time as my knowledge improved so did my files and their designs.

After being given a reviewers position I decided that I could go it alone so in January 2009 I quit my job and became a freelancer, life has never been better.

As for my files and what I have in store for the future, I have 2 files to be released soon, one is quite a generic file but the other is something truly unique and something I hope will really take off!

Red Steel XML Website Template – By FlashJunkie – preview here

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There has been a lot of controversy lately from Google, Apple and just recently Microsoft on the future of Flash vs. HTML 5 and CSS3 – what is your take on the situation?

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Yes indeed there has, well to be perfectly honest Jonathan, I am a Flash developer through and through and I very rarely code any HTML or CSS so I haven’t really been keeping up with the latest other than the nasty goings on between Apple and Adobe with the whole Flash to iPhone thing. I have always been a fan of Apple products because they stand for what most web designers are all about, top quality design and functionality, but my iPhone savings jar just turned into an android phone savings jar, what Apple are doing to the Flash community is wrong.

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You are not only a great ActiveDen.net author, but you are a reviewer there also. How do you find the time to keep up with things and do you do all this full-time or do you also hold down a full time gig during the day?:

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Thank you, I personally think that there are a lot more authors that could better define the word ‘great’ but I’m not one to refuse a compliment. Yes, I’m a fulltime freelancer and I am one of the longest employed reviewers at Envato, the earnings from this position form the foundations for my income, I try to earn enough from reviewing to cover all the necessities and then any freelance work and commission earnings from sales pay for the fun things in life.

As a few people may know, especially my Skype contacts, my hours are very irregular, you can usually still find me online at around 5am, so I have plenty of time to get things done and still find time to spend with my beautiful girlfriend and my family.

iTweet by FlashJunkie – Preview here

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Anything you may be excited about in the newly released CS5 suite with regards to flash development you can tell us about?:

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Yes, I’m looking forward to upgrading, I WAS very much looking forward to playing with the iPhone packager but we all know what’s happening there. Instead I’m looking at some of the smaller features, in particular the ‘Code Snippets’ feature. As I am sure is the case with all other web programmers I am forever re-using and adapting code, so having a panel that holds snippets of code for loading XML, creating a menu or aligning objects to the stage etc, will come in very useful.

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When it comes to creating new flash designs where do you gather your inspiration from Jay? Do you find it from looking around other flash sites, css galleries or maybe some other inspiration none related:

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My inspiration for new projects usually comes from inside my head, I often have ‘eureka’ moments and usually at the most inconvenient of times, I can be out walking my dog or perhaps out shopping and wham I have a great idea for something and have to rush home before I forget about it. As for design I like to try new things, design has been the one thing I have really struggled with as people who have followed my work for some time will know. However I think I am at a point now where I can confidently design something and be happy with it.

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Do you have any personal or professional goals for 2010?:

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I’ll keep this answer short and sweet,

• Learn AS3
• Learn PV3D
• Learn to drive
• Gold ‘Paw’ (note from editor – Envato marketplace authors receive “paws” by colors dependent on their sales)
• Launch my website (3 years building sites for other people and I still haven’t got around to building one for myself!)

XML Slideshow/Banner Rotator (XML Delay + More) by FlashJunkie – Preview here

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How do you find working at Envato as a reviewer?:

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I think I can safely speak for every single Envato reviewer or employee on this one. Working for Envato is a true pleasure, we are so well looked after and I hope to be able to continue working for Envato for a long time to come.

The only bad thing that comes with being a reviewer is sometimes when we reject files people take it personally. I personally think that authors should take a rejection as a reason to improve. After all the better the file is the better the sales are. Rejection in a strange way, is a good thing.

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As we know ActiveDen recruits new authors daily trying to create and sell files. It can be difficult at first to get your files accepted – is there any strong advice or guidelines you can supply that may help them out?:

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The first thing new authors should do is read the upload instructions, you would be amazed how many files are uploaded incorrectly.

There are many things that will help a new author get a file approved, I wrote a blog post for ActiveDen a while ago which explains what the reviewers look for and I think it’s really helpful for all authors, not just new ones. Here is a link: http://blog.activeden.net/resources/tips-tricks/get-approved-first-time-every-time/

Jay’s Workstation

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Well Jay, we’ll let you get back to your review queue before the mob linches you – thanks so much for taking time out of your day to help inform our readers and fans of your work!

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Thank you for the interview Jonathan, it was a pleasure and thanks to everyone who has read this to find out a little more about me. If you like what I do on ActiveDen be sure to follow me there or come and chat to me on twitter – @FlashJunkie.

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