BannerZest Standard 3
full review
It was only seven months ago that we reviewed BannerZest, but the animated advertising maker is back in version 3, with timely support for HTML5, incidentally.
To bring everyone up to speed, we should explain that Bannerzest is a simple, wizard-based animation tool for chucking together animated advertising banners. You can use photos and text alongside vector graphics to create fairly complex animations. And by “fairly complex” we mean for banner ads. You won’t be making Cars 3 with BannerZest.
The software works using themes, which are animation templates. You drag and drop images – singles files or a full folder – to the application window to get started. An animation is generated immediately. You just tweak it using the Inspector pane – a dialog with Theme, Settings, Media and Publish tabs. You can also preview the animation as Flash or HTML5.
We’re looking at the Standard edition because, at £89, BannerZest Pro is just a little too pricey to be classed as a Mac gem. And therein lies one of the tool’s main problems. Many industry analysts think that Flash is facing it twilight years. HTML5 and CSS3 can do most of the things Flash can do, without plug-ins.
If you want a drag-and-drop tool for making animated banner adverts, then BannerZest wants your forty quid
We’re already seeing a wave of new, budget priced HTML5 animation tools – with online efforts like Animatable, and desktop tools such as Adobe Edge and Tumult Hype.