Tips for designing artist websites

I spend way too much time on the internet looking at art and looking at designs for artists websites.  It’s a sickness I think !

In this post I set out the items that I think are important to consider when designing your artist website.

1.      First and foremost good quality images.   

By this I mean taking a lot of care with the following:

sharp, not fuzzy images

images cropped well so that we don’t see little bits of the wall behind or bits of grass on the ground around your images

straight images!

If you can, hire a photographer to take photos of your work, but if you can’t check out my post Tips for photographing artwork.

2.     Images that load quickly  

There’s nothing worse than opening a website and having to wait forever for the images to load (well there are worse things in life but this is rather annoying).   

Your images should be 72 dpi and around 500 pixels wide maximum. 

3.     Page content organised logically

I think that artist websites generally only need a few key pages, probably something like: 

An “About” page where you write a bit about yourself.  This will probably be the home page.

A “Work” page which displays a gallery or galleries of your work. 

A “Biography” page where you have more info about your work, perhaps your CV, exhibition history etc.

A “Contact”  page with a contact form and/or your contact details.  You may want to include a link to your Twitter, Facebook, Linked in or your Blog.

4.      A layout that enables the viewer to focus on the work rather than being distracted by what’s going on in the background.

5.      Colour schemes that compliments the work, not clash with the work.  Physical gallery spaces usually have white or neutral coloured walls, your online gallery should be the same.

6.      Group your images well 

 In the same way you would curate a show in a physical gallery, curate your online gallery. 

7.      Create separate galleries

Give some thought as to whether you should group your images into separate galleries, for example, put all your ‘landscapes’ together.

Here’s some examples of artist websites that are well designed for the type of work these artists create, Hazel Dooney, Erin Hill

How to create an artist website on a small budget Part 2

This is part 2 of a blog post How to create an artist website on a small budget.  The information here is based on a seminar I gave at Art Est Art School. 

In Part 1 we looked at what you need to do before you start, and how to create a zero cost artist website.  In Part 2 we look at low cost artist websites.

So here we go…..

At the end of this post I have listed a number of organisations that provide templates specifically designed for artists to create their own websites quickly and easily at an affordable price.  Each of the organisations provides a set of templates on which you can base your website design.  The template designs are excellent for art or photography websites. 

Some offer more features than others and the prices are varied.  I have not included the prices as these are subject to change. I recommend that you check the current price direct with the listed organisation. 

My personal favourite from this list is ClikPic.  I have created two of my websites using ClikPic and found them to be fantastic (I am not paid by them it’s just my opinion!).  I also used DeviantArt for a while, which was also great.

Remember to make sure that your images are ‘web ready’ before you start !

Top tips when considering which (if any) to use:

1. Take advantage of the ‘free trial’ period to try before you buy.  In fact if there’s not a free trial option, I would skip that one !
2. Once you have signed up for your trial and added some content, try out as many of the different designs as you can to see which suits your work.
3. Consider carefully whether you want to sell your work online now or whether you might want to do this later.  If you do, or think you might,  make sure you select a provider that can provide eCommerce facilities.  This will generally come in the form of Paypal integration.
4. Think about how many images you will want to display – some providers have a specific limit.  This is unlikely to be a problem, the limit is usually quite large.
5. I have assumed that most artists will want to display static images, however digital artists may wish to show multimedia files.  If so, ensure that the provider can cope with this.
6. I recommend ensuring that Site Statistics are available using an in built analyser or  ”Google Analytics” .
7. All of the listed organisations are “Search engine friendly” or search engine ready - it your site will be submitted to sites such as Google.
8. Look at other artist websites before you start and see how the pages and images are organised.  Consider how many pages and or galleries you would like and ensure the provider does not place unsuitable restrictions.

ClikPic

Foliolink

DeviantART

OnlineGalleries

MosaicGlobe

Mr Site

Wix

 

How to create an artist website on a small budget Part 1

This 2 Part blog is from a seminar at Art Est Art School, run by me, Lisa !

Why did I want to run the seminar? 

Well, an artist website is the simplest and most professional way to display your artwork to friends, potential buyers or potential gallery owners.   I cannot believe how many artists do NOT have a website when it’s so easy to create a great looking website for cheap.   It drives me nuts when I discover a new artist, Google them, and discover NO WEBSITE !

Contrary to popular belief it does not require a degree in Technology or Graphic Design or a huge budget

Who was the seminar aimed at ?

Artists who:

want a DIY artist website (ie create it and maintain it, not pay someone else to do it).

want low fuss, minimal effort.

want a zero cost or low cost artist website.

don’t have a web design background but are ok with Technology.

want a professional looking website .  For this reason I left out using tools such as Myspace, Flickr, Facebook and Picasa (they are ok but we can do much better).

So let’s begin, at the beginning. In Part 1 of this post we will look at what you need to do before you start, and then how to create a zero cost artist website.

What you absolutely 100% need to create your own artist website
What you might also want for your artist website
How to create a zero cost artist website
Zero cost artist websites – advantages and disadvantages

What you abolutely 100% need to create your own artist website

Access to a PC/laptop

A web browser (Internet Explorer or Mozilla/Firefox)

Internet access

Email address

Images of your work that are ‘web ready’.

Some thoughts about what makes a ‘professional looking’ website.  It’s a good idea to look at other artist’s websites before you start.  The ‘good ones’ will become apparent pretty quickly.  Look at the layouts that work, the way the images are displayed, how the websites are organised.    You can view my opinons on what makes a good artist website here !

What you might also want for your artist website

Your own domain name eg www.yourname.com

eCommerce (ie sell your work online)

Website statistics (ie Google Analytics to tell you how many people have oggled your work !)

How to create a zero cost artist website

The following is list of some of the faboulous organisations that supply FREE website templates to artists.  Yes ! they have been specifically designed with artists/photographers in mind.    This is not an exhaustive list.  If you know of more, please do let me know.  I would love to check them out.

DeviantArt

Online Galleries   

Mosaic Globe 

ArtistSites 

Wix       

Saatchi Online 

The templates supplied by each of these fabulous organisations enable artists to upload images and organise images into galleries.  They also allow space to include some biographical and contact information.  Brilliant !

All you need to do is go to the website and follow the instructions.  Simple. Hey presto a website . But, the bad news is that there are some disadvantages to zero cost artist websites. You can’t get everything for nothing after all.

Zero cost artist websites – advantages and disadvantages

There are definately some advantages to using the free option.   Namely it’s free !.  But, the bad news is that there are some disadvantages to zero cost artist websites as well. You can’t get everything for nothing after all.

Some of these are listed below.  If the disadvantages are not to your liking, then you can check out How to create an artist website on a small budget Part 2.

Advantages	Disadvantages
It’s free!	Generally limited in the amount of customisation you are able to do.
Generally very easy to create and upload images	Generally limited to a small amount of space.  This means that you might only be able to have a couple of pages and fewere images.
Generally good support (follow the bouncing ball)	Generally will not be able to use your own domain name (ie www.yourname.com).  Your URL will likely be something like www.[companyname].[yourname].com.
	Web analytics may not be available.  THis simply means that you might not be able to find out how many people oggled your fabulous images.
	eCommerce may not be an option.  This means that you probably won’t be able to sell your work securely via Paypal for example.  You could get around this by setting up an etsy, red bubble, big cartel page.  So it might not be a big deal.
	THere may be additional additional content included on the site that you cannot remove (eg Google Ads)

Other free options include Blogger  and WordPress.  These are fine, but they weren’t designed with artists in mind so not exactly perfect.