Artist Website Design: Graphic Designers or Self-Built

Once you’ve got your domain name and hosting service, the next step is building the design of your website. There are different options available for an artist, especially when just starting out.

This is the time when some may have a graphic designer step in and create the site, as they are much more knowledgeable of the process. Graphic designer, Sheldon Rennie, described a website designer as having “much more experience to intuitively know what works in terms of navigation patterns, hot areas and the balance of form and function”. You can be safe that chances are you will be walking away with a professional, fluid site if you go this route, but it will cost you money. And with many things, depending on what your budget is will dictate the quality of what you will get in return Also there is the consideration of how much you will want to be updating your website, and having the designer/programmer be the one to continually have to go through may be a burden and costly. For an artist’s website where the primary function is to display your artwork and provide contact information, this seems to be at a level an artist starting out could handle. If you are interested in creating a more interactive website or also having an online store, these elements can be a little more complex and sophisticated and may best be left to the professionals. This will likely cause you a lot less headache in the end. If you are still adamant of taking on the more complex elements of your website design, be prepared that you’ll be emailing your technical support frequently and so be patient.

If you are deciding to build and design your own artist website, there options of doing it manually with programs such as Dreamweaver and using code and HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). NVU and Smultron are other programs to help with HTML. Unless you have experience, Dreamweaver can be complex when first starting out. Today, there are many other options that are a more much more user friendly for the beginner designer. Content Management Systems (CMS) are an option to consider. They allow you to create and manage the content of your own website. They consist of two elements: the content management application (CMA) and the content delivery application (CDA). There are many CMS available on the Internet, and it’s up to you to find one that has templates, themes or layouts that will fit the look you are wanting. Many CMS websites feature websites that are using their system. This is great to check out and see first hand how you like their program. Also, if you run into any problems using their program, most have forums you can visit, and chances are someone has had the same problem as you. This is a good start to problem solving. Plug-ins are a great way to add customized elements to your website and create better functionality. It’s a feature that you can download for free into your website, but the more you add, the more problems you may run into with compatibility problems. Also, since they are free, the creator may not continue to update it over time. So there may become a point where the plug-in stops working, and you’ll have to take it out/change or replace it. Many creators ask for donations to allow them to continue to update their plug-ins.

Indexhibit is a CMS I came across after viewing a local artist’s website and enjoying the simple and easy navigation and the clean layout. I am interested in giving them a try as I build my own website. As mentioned above, there are many other CMS available on the Internet. Here is a site that lists other CMS similar to Indexhibit. Two more that stood out to me were Cargo and Drupal. It is important to consider before you commit to a CMS is to find out if it is compatible with your hosting service and will work on your server. This will help to eliminate problems down the road.