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What makes an effective artist website and why do you need one?
These answers to these questions are incorporated in our templates
and website packages and allow us to offer you a straightforward
solution to creating an effective and elegant website for your art.
Any artist interested in showing  their
work to others should have a website. There is no more cost effective,
compelling way to make your images and information available. A
website offers advantages over traditional printed material in various
ways. You can show more work and keep it current so new pieces are
always at the forefront. Printed material gets lost, is more costly
to make and ship and cannot reach as many people. While we don't
believe that much original art is sold over the web, your website
is an invaluable sales supplement and a superb catalogue that is
available to anyone at all times.
An artist website should, first and foremost, be about your art.
It's design should be clean and simple in order to let the artwork
stand out. Too often, artist websites are overdesigned, use competing
color schemes or have that "amateurish" look. The design
of your website reflects on your art - it should have an appearance
as professional as any venue in which you'd show your work. Design
is a specific skillset many artists don't have (it takes years of
training, just like any other artistic discipline) and website design
is a very special focus within this area. It takes time and money
to learn about website construction and to build and maintain them
- many artists would rather focus their energy on creating art and
let others support that art through tasks such as printing or website
construction and maintenance.
Website navigation should be simple, clear and consistent. Visitors
should be able to easily find everything they need. Websites should
be designed to work with Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator
on both Mac and PC platforms, to fit with standard monitor display
parameters and to be optimized for fast performance. Unless you
know the ins and outs of these technical issues, you are likely
to run into problems.
You will need a solution for maintaining the website. Too many sites
are launched and then never updated. As you create new work or sell
existing work, schedule new shows or classes, change your pricing,
etc., you will want to publish this to the site in a timely manner.
Otherwise, the site's usefulness becomes dramatically reduced. Too
often, web consultants or firms come and go, or are not interested
in maintenance once the site is launched. Color Folio is (and has
been for many years) committed to supporting you and your images
in all ways possible. Our website service is simply the next extension
of this ongoing commitment.
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