Building Your Artist Website: A Few Last Things to Consider

Through much of my research into building an artist’s website, reoccurring themes came up as to what were the most important aspects in the design of a website. Simple easy navigation is key. If people are unable to move around your website with ease, they probably won’t stay very long. The same goes for the design and layout. Keep it simple. Don’t over design. You want your artwork to be the showcase, and the site to be a platform for it, not the other way around. These are things that can easily be forgotten, especially with all the templates and add-ons available.

When asking designers what are some of their least favorite or most annoying design elements on websites were, many were expressed repeatedly. Jody Krangle’s “Commonly Made Mistakes When Building an Artist Website” also hit every point that had been brought up in first person interviews. Having a splash page is something considered being quite dated now, and isn’t really needed. Take your viewer to the home page right away; they don’t need anything else to load, as you want your site to load as quickly as possible. Viewers aren’t interested in waiting for something to load. The same goes with having music playing in the background. This is more of a distraction and adds to the amount of information that has to be loaded when viewing your site. Flash, though can look pretty, might be something best to avoid. If you don’t have a lot of experience using it, it could cause more grief than success. Flash websites also don’t tend to work well on Ipods or Iphones. It is also difficult to make changes and update a flash site.

With many hosting services comes an email service as well. Consider using this email address as you professional contact. It is considered a more secure and professional address, compared to “gmail” “yahoo” and “hotmail” accounts. You can set them up so any emails get directed to your personal account, so there isn’t really inconvenience at all.

You’ll need to dowload a FTP, File Transfer Protocol Program. This will allow you to upload and dowload files to your hosting server in the beginning. After that you’ll be able to edit and access your website through the host service. The FTP provides a “back door” so to speak, allowing you access to your files if needed if the host server is unavailable. Filezilla is a free FTP that is compatible with PC and Mac. There are plenty available for free and isn’t something you’d need to purchase.

And finally, remember to back up your files for your website. You never know what could happen and it’ll be when you least expect it.