by Linda | Apr 15, 2011 | my creative journal
Hi everyone! Continuing onward with my creative business endeavors, today I uploaded my new website at http://www.lindatieu.com – yay! Actually, it’s not totally ready yet, but given that no one really knows about the site, I think there’s no harm in putting it up. I guess you guys know about the site though…LOL. One of the advantages of starting a new website is that no one is going to really see it to begin with. So you can do some real time checking and testing, before sending out those marketing emails. It is important to check your website on multiple computers – all the platforms and browsers to ensure it looks right.
Since I took the time to organize my artwork and design my website in preparation, finishing the site was just a matter of coding and editing. Obviously, this part might be easy for some… or a lot harder for others. Remember that there are many other solutions out there for artists to get a website. You can hire a professional, set up a quick portfolio/blog combined or sign up for one of those hosted portfolio packages. Either way, it’s a lot easier when you’ve prepared all the images and planned things out.
However, I have to admit that once you pull it all together and see everything in action – sometimes things just need to change. Maybe you realize a particular section isn’t working or you don’t like the presentation of certain work. That is why you need to take the time to test your website out before fully releasing it to the whole world. And by the whole world, I really mean your audience – whether it is emailing the prospective clients or advertising with the URL. As soon as you tell people to seriously check out your website, they are going to give you that first impression chance and possibly never return. So don’t open the doors until you do feel ready. If you are already mentioning your domain name on business cards or elsewhere online, it might be best to hide your development and tinkering with a coming soon page. However, in that situation I think it’s a good idea to offer an “Email me” option, so you can let people know once the site is up. Otherwise, they might never come back…
I had started to waver a bit when organizing my art licensing collections and original artwork on my site. Since I’m just starting out, it’s hard to get a cohesive portfolio put together. My work has a certain style, but I also like to work in many different mediums and styles. I know it will be changing with the times (perhaps always)…and sometimes this can just look really messy to others. As if you haven’t found your artist self yet. Do you ever completely find yourself? Anyway, I couldn’t let those thoughts stop me from showing off what I do have now. I’m certainly not trying to pull the wool over anyones’ eyes about my experience. I’ve been around, but I’m also just starting out…so this is where I am now. As I create more work, I will be updating the site and chopping off old work to clean things up a bit of course. I think it’s important to overcome those fears and doubts – reminding ourselves that everyone started out as a beginner, a nobody, just a student…
So I’m going to take the weekend to finalize my website, testing it and writing a few notes about ongoing maintenance required. I’ll be delving into some social media topics for our creative business 101 journey next week, but let me leave you some resource links that I have found helpful. You might want to check them out even if you are just rebranding or polishing up an existing site!
– 19 Important Factors Before Launching Your Website
– How to Launch a New Website or Blog
– 8 Tips for Keeping Your Art Portfolio Fresh
by Linda | Apr 14, 2011 | my creative journal
Hi everyone! I’ve got the next issue of Pensieri completed and in the mail to subscribers…whew! It’s been a bit challenging to keep the vision of what I want under 100 grams when packed up for shipping. I no longer like these huge jumps in postage pricing…because it jumps from 4 euro up to 100 grams to 7 euro even if a gram more. After a lot of printing, testing, folding and weighing…I hope to have found a happy medium. Issue 5 is all about Chinese brush painting and my explorations in loosening up creativity. I thought it would be a great subject to explore and I’ve learned so much. Oddly enough though, I realized that you need to learn control before loosening up. Imagine that!
I’ve had a lot of fun sharing my thoughts and discovering, through my journey of exploring the ancient art of brush painting. I really do hope you’ll support me by purchasing a copy from my Etsy shop. There’s a really limited quantity given that I hand-stitch and compose every zine. It’s still got the envelope cover with a back pocket surprise – thankfully I was able to make that under the weight restrictions. Yay! Even if you don’t buy a copy, I want to share a few thoughts of what I’ve learned. Ultimately, it is the philosophy and way of thinking behind brush painting that really hit me. Learning control and techniques is all good, but in the end you have to bring forth your own energy and interpretation. A fine balance between controlled work and going with the flow of spontaneity as it happens. I think it’s a refreshing way to think about creative work in general…but also for life.
On the lighter side of things, I also simply enjoy the meditative process of doodling with paint, creating puffy little cute animals. Isn’t that little panda just adorable – LOL!
by Linda | Apr 8, 2011 | my creative journal
From my last post about designing your website…it’s no surprise that after looking at my initial work – I decided to change it up a bit. I think it’s really important to give yourself some time and be totally comfortable with the design you will go with. Sure you can change it up at any time and at some point you will update it to change with the times. But this is your website representation online and you want to love it! You’ll be seeing it and showing it off all the time, so don’t hesitate to keep working at it. Although revisions could go off into a spiral at times, you just need to find the middle ground. I wasn’t totally happy with my final design, so I played around a bit more. I asked myself, what do I want to see, what do I like and not like?
My directive was to create a more impactful homepage for those coming to my website for the first time. So I got rid of the newsletter column for the homepage, removing the distraction. I also decided to go with a more traditional navigation strip. It’s much clearer in that way and shows up clearly. This gave me room in the header to add some graphics and my shorter vision statement…which I like sitting up there as a consistent element. Not sure if I should fade out the graphics though or maybe go with a floral element…hmm. I also wanted to showcase other artwork that was not specifically art licensing directed, even though that is the priority. Just want to show a little more variety of what I do. I’m really close to building it out and to avoid going into a neverending cycle of revisions, I’ve just given myself a deadline. It’s a great way to finalize things. When there is a deadline, you get it done!
For those who already have a website, remember that you should be thinking about a bit of Spring cleaning. A website is a living element, so don’t think it should stay the same forever. Why would people ever come back? It should updated to represent who you are and what you do currently…and you as an artist are always growing and changing. You might find some website related articles I’ve come across helpful. Thought I would share as I’ve definitely learned a lot:
by Linda | Apr 1, 2011 | my creative journal
Since I’m designing my own website, I’ve going through the process from scratch. However, even if you hire someone to design your website for you or if you choose to use a service online where templates are provided…it’s still a good exercise for you to go through the design process in your mind. Having done quite a few web design jobs in the past, often clients just throw it over the fence, so to speak. Then I find out after the fact that they had something in mind or have certain preferences that they didn’t express previously. As with everything, we are going through the steps to make it a smooth and easy process for everyone. Ultimately, that will lead us to the end result that satisfies all our needs.
Building upon the purpose of your website which should never be compromised by the aesthetic or design decisions…think about the style you prefer. It’s honestly the most useful to think of a few adjectives to describe what you want. I would like a site that is simple, clean and direct. I want to keep it minimal, so the artwork pops and shows up the most…I don’t really want distractions in the site design because it doesn’t serve much purpose in the end. However, I think some artist might want to use their artwork in the design of their site…perhaps create the mood. Just make sure it doesn’t clash with how you display your portfolio.
Even when using a template or theme for your website, often you choose the colors and insert imagery. So it’s important to take your time in choosing a combination that works for you. One of my biggest pet peeves in artistic sites is the lack of usability. Folks like to have hidden navigation elements or animations flying all over and it just makes it hard to use your website! Unless it’s something connected to your whole purpose, or perhaps you are already famous and people are compelled to navigate your website no matter what – it’s just a bad idea. I know there are websites out there that seem to break all the rules, yet they are successful in their business. Sure, it happens…when the product sort of compels people to overlook all those other obstacles. But do you really want to start your business in that way? It’s much better to make it as easy as possible for others to use your website from the start. Don’t scare people away!
Think about your navigation elements and make sure it makes sense, easily visible and easy to use. From your sitemap, you should have a clear organization figured out already, giving some sense to your website structure. Otherwise, you’ll be adding things here and there, plopping them on left and right and suddenly your website is a mess of stuff. That’s when you need to step back and revise your sitemap. Here are a few guiding tips to help you out:
- Follow your sitemap, so every piece of content has purpose
- You can even include a sitemap page with direct links to each piece of content, if your website contains a lot of parts (like a table of contents for a book)
- I don’t think you need the sitemap page if your main navigation does the same job though – like my simple website plan.
- Make sure your site is organized with easy to use navigation that appears on every page!
- Try to reduce the amount of clicks for users to reach content…basically as simple and flat as possible for your purposes
- Avoid flashy, animating or extra graphics “just because” – it needs to serve a purpose – remember!
- Make sure your text or imagery is easily readable or viewable – not clashing to the eye or taking away from your work pieces.
- When creating graphics for your website, make sure it’s saved for the web…
After creating your design, we can go into the development details and checking the download speed of your website. For visual artists, we often offer thumbnails, so that it doesn’t take forever to load large images of our work. However, you can always show one piece large first to get the impact and WOW factor for your work, then have all others as thumbnails. Again, just have to weigh your goals, the purposes and finding a balance for everything. I hope these tips have helped you move forward a bit. You can check out this Art Biz blog post with important points about what people look for in an artists’ website specifically as well. There’s a nice list of amazingly one page websites that do the job here. Design sponge also have a great post going through setting up a website with WordPress in a weekend. There are lots of options out there and resources to help you get through the process.
Here’s the site design I created for my website…mocked up in Photoshop and ready for development. I also created an inner page to work out what that would look like…it’s always best to have things figured out before you dive into building…reduce the confusion and need for making immediate decisions while in the trenches!
Notice that I have have included my logo to brand my website along with my navigation, consistent on every page and clearly visible. There should not be any confusion when it comes to looking for my work or contact info, etc. Keeping with the minimal style, I kept it pretty simple and sleek…but I wanted to put in that kraft paper background as it is one of my favorite surfaces to work on and that adds a bit of me into the site without distracting from other elements. It’s also less boring than a solid color, for me personally. In the artwork section I’m just showing previews of collections with a note that full collections are viewable to interested parties if they contact me. Notice that I added the newsletter sign-up to the right side of my website structure as well, so as someone browses they can clearly sign up to receive mailouts when new work is available to review. I also added my mission and vision as the space was available and I think it’s nice to have that driving force sort of branded there. For me this is a great marketing tool, so I can directly contact those who are interested in seeing new work and see if they want it! It’s nothing fancy, but it serves exactly my purpose and goal. I’m already thinking it might be too busy in some respects…might want to work on the spacing and such…refining the details before diving into development. It helps to step away and look at your work after a few days, so I’ll mull over everything this weekend. What do you think and what have you come up with for your creative business?
