Sprout » Sprout Conversations

How Flash Developers Use Sprout to Save Time

Joey Mucha — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 18:16:26 +0000

I recently had a conversation with Walter Gross, the Senior Director, Digital Strategy at EMI / Capitol Music Group about how his team of Flash developers / designers are using Sprout to create interactive Flash content quickly and efficiently. Walter has been immersed in the web and Flash design tools since the late ’90s, at a time when, as he puts it, was bombarded by “big and glitzy” Flash elements. Before Walter’s team had discovered Sprout, they were creating all of the content by hand-coding each element. Sprout has turned out to be a huge time-saver and made Walter’s team more efficient.

In our conversation, Walter describes what the workflow looks like with Sprout as a key component of the process. In his example, he talks about a project with MySpace around a particular band’s music video premiere that needed some custom Flash elements. One of these elements was a slideshow with a countdown clock. This element previously took about one hour to code by hand but Walter was able to create this in 15 minutes using Sprout. The client received the final product and was very happy. Here is the sprout that was created:

“If I had done that straight-up in Flash, it would have taken me an hour or so, but with Sprout, it only took about 15 minutes once I had my assets ready. What makes it even cooler, is that I am able to get really great reporting on my sprouts.” - Walter Gross

Here is the entire interview:

Sprout Conversations #4: Josh Rhinehart, Music Allies

Joey Mucha — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 13:49:45 +0000

In this Sprout Conversation, I am joined by Josh Rhinehart who is a creative art director for the music promotions company, Music Allies. Being a creative designer, Josh has pushed the boundaries of our platform and created some of the most impressive sprouts. I have included some of Josh’s sprouts below.

Josh’s sprouts:

Tip for new Sprout users:

“Instantly make your background transparent. Go into the master pages, select the background and drop the white background. Start with a completely clear canvas, like Photoshop.”

Sprout Conversations #3: Mark Delville of TxtMovieClub

Joey Mucha — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 22:50:40 +0000

In our third Sprout Conversations, I had the opportunity to chat with Mark Delville, the co-founder of TxtMovieClub. Mark is an entrepreneur and Sprout power-user who is constantly leveraging social tools to grow his companies. Listen to our conversation to learn more about how Mark uses Sprout.

Links and content referenced in the interview:

Txt Movie Club – http://www.txtmovieclub.com/

Sprout Conversations #2: Steve Richo of Noise New Media

Joey Mucha — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 16:27:17 +0000

In the second Sprout Conversations, I am joined by Steve Richo, who is a Sprout power-user and the co-founder of Noise New Media. Steve has created some very impressive sprouts and is constantly pushing the envelope of our platform. During our conversation, we discuss how he found sprout, how he is using it today and what the next big trends in social promotions are. I also introduced a new segment to this interview that I call the “Hot Seat” where I propose two pop culture entities and you must choose one. For example, “Kanye West or Taylor Swift?”

References from the interview:

Noise New Media

Advice to new users:

“Take the time to make individual files of all the elements in your sprouts and animate them using the effects and animation functionality.”

“Set up your master pages first, at least setup the master background because it is a huge timesaver.”

Steve Azar sprout: