Designing on the fly

I must say that I enjoy hearing about the latest alpha and beta invites that come through Mashable. That’s how I came across this latest find: Aviary. In case you didn’t know, Aviary is a web-based application set that is specifically targeted to those “who love to create”. When I’ve explored their website, I found it quite similar to Adobe’s suite of products. You have a RIA version of Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere and much more! Never again will you have to worry about creating graphics or images on regular computers. Simply sign up for Aviary and create on the go.

The one problem that I see (but as you look at it, it seems to make some sense) is that they are going through a trial phase. What does that mean? Well you can use their tools for free if you have an invite, but in the future, they’ll probably charge you. With most new websites, the services are free, but I guess this could be a result for the need to pay back their teams for all the hard work they’ve done with this great solution. So if you need to create a graphic or mix a audio CD or even tweak a video, then you can import it into Aviary and presto! there you go…

Will this replace the need to buy Adobe and thus create some competition for desktop publishing? I don’t think so. Aviary is a pretty neat tool, but the interface is working off of Flash which can be a problem with accessibility. The tools in their Photoshop’esque-version is quite limited compared to the real Photoshop. If they combined all of these tools in one or condensed them, then I would see how much more beneficial it would be.

But you might be asking about why did someone create a site in this day of age just to allow people to create on the fly? Well to share, of course! Aviary is also a social networking site where you can be as creative as you want and post to your profile and have it critiqued or passed around by your peers/friends/foes/family. What’s more is that this site takes the “social” part of “social media” to the next level by enabling you to collaborate on projects. So if you are good a design, but lack skills in making things more interactive then just pass it along and talk with some of your friends and make it work.

Aviary is only available by invite right now. I can invite folks to it if you want so feel free to leave me a comment on here and I’ll pass one along. You should definitely check it out.