How to set up a website
Naming guidelines
When picking the name of your site remember that taste and style may change. On top of this, your tastes and style may change so I would avoid memes and branding yourself and instead go with something more generic which will also allow you to keep the site or domain name but won’t trap you into a certain brand you may want to change. So yourname.com or yournameart.com etc might be a better choice than darkdamagedart155.WordPress.com.
Where should you host your site?
There are several options for this. For the free option, I’m going to go with WordPress.com and for the paid version I’d go with squarespace.com. Both have a great support base and some templates to allow you to design your site.
How should I design my site?
Unless your primary intent is to become a web designer (in which case you should probably design your site). I want you to think of your site as nothing more than a frame. Even if your art tends to deal with and comment on things such as technology and choice, I still think it should be easy to navigate and allow people to get in touch with you if they need to. So a simple, minimal site made up of mostly white, grey and black will provide you with the best bet to let your artwork shine.
How should I organize my site?
I think you should have the following:
- A way to contact you. – An about page (we wrote this very early in the term)
- A link to shows if they happen often.
- At least one gallery.
- You can split the gallery up into different sections if you want such as abstract, figurative, portraits, documentaries, etc. or if you tend to do work around certain themes you can do this is well. Save this for your best work.
- You can also link to professional social media sites such as your Instagram page if you have one you use mainly for your art.
Hey wait, how do I build the website?
Squarespace has some great tutorials on their site which are always being updated, your best bet is to look at those. For WordPress here is a link that will show you how to get things started up. https://en.support.wordpress.com/five-step-website-setup/
As always if you have questions please let me know and I’ll try to help.
Happy holidays, Ric