Website for Artists

• A virtual gallery lets people delight in your work and revel in their favourite pieces.
• Publishers commission art covers based on your portfolio.
• Your professional website gives collectors an insight into what they can buy from you.
• Your online portfolio should stir up such desire that admirers cannot wait to arrange a viewing.

But with so many artists in the world, how do you stand out from the rest? And if people consider you as an amateur, how do you get taken seriously as a professional artist?

Your tailor-made website must reflect your personality and style.

Using a ready-made template just simply won't do! Let your work be presented in a professional way that shows people how successful and committed you are.

Don't become another artist who's rich in talent only. A successful artist website is your best agent, available 24x7 - 365 days a year and it doesn't ask for a handsome reward when your artwork finds a new home.

Contact us today for your online sales agent!

Below are some tips that are pertinent to artist websites. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions or to ask for a no-obligation quote to design your professional portfolio.

Choosing your domain name

Normally we'd recommend that people choose a domain name that describes what the website is offering. For example, www.toursandtales.com clearly tells people that the website is about Tours and Tales, and suggests that it's about travel and writing.

However, when it comes to artists, you need to register your name as the domain name, because you are "your product". If your collectors live in your country, then choosing a domain name with your country's extension (e.g. co.uk or .nl) is a good idea. If your market is world-wide, then it's also a good idea to register a .com version of your name too. It's not necessary to have two websites, as one domain can be forwarded to the other.

We can create an interactive gallery of your work in Flash (like the example above of our work). To make sure that people can find your website through the search engines, we'll design the rest of your website using html (search engine-friendly coding). By showing your work in Flash, it also makes it more difficult for people to steal copies of your work i.e. not much can be done with a print screen.

Choosing the right key words

As mentioned on the page "Plan Your Website", key words are an integral part of your website design. This is how people discover your artwork. We'll help you find the best key words.

What will your website look like?

Firstly, it must reflect you and your work. We work closely with our clients to ensure they are totally delighted with the look and feel of their website.

"My website is absolutely fantastic and better than anything I could have dreamed of. The number of visitors has risen sharply and the reaction of the public is great." ~ Nico Bulder, see full reference. Some of the comments in Nico's guestbook include "compliments on your professional website", "it's so easy to navigate" and "your work is fabulous, just like your website".

Colours - you're very welcome to give us your preferred colours for the fonts, menu, content and background using their HEX or RGB values.

Fonts - this is a little tricky, as there are very few fonts that are standard on every pc around the world. This means that your favourite font might not be available on your collector's computer, in which case their impression of your website would be very different to yours. To make sure that viewers see what you see, we use standard fonts for the important content and make little graphics for the non-essential text using your preferred fonts.

Layout - to keep your website clean and consistent, we recommend using a header at the top, a navigation menu on the left hand side and the content on the right hand side. Links at the bottom of the page are also popular with website visitors. Most people are familiar with this layout and it leaves your visitor free to see what's most important ... your artwork!

How many pages should your website have?

Marketing Tip: enhance your portfolio by placing graphic catalogues of your work on your website. These files are very easy for potential buyers to download from your website, and are also easy to distribute by e-mail.

Budget Tip: we could build your website in stages, starting with your best-selling pieces (or reproductions - see "Supplement your income with reprints") and later expanding it to include more work. If your budget is extremly low, check out our article "Do I need a professionally-designed website?"

Professional portfolios use good photographs, informative biographies, great references, and an easy way for buyers to organise a viewing. Videos can also enhance your viewer's experience by giving them an insight in the artist - you.

We'd like YOU to have a successful portfolio that fulfils it's unique purpose, where:

1. your website attracts the best opportunities for you, and
2. it's easy for people to glimpse into your world.

Give your admirers a hassle-free experience that will make them want to come back ... and share it with their friends.

Contact us today to discuss your website needs!

Supplement your income with reprints

Let your artwork enhance postcards, greeting cards, notepads, calendars and framed prints. Using online services like Cafepress, you can sell these items without the hassle of finding suppliers, printers and packaging companies.

You can simply create a free account with them (please tell them 'marvic' sent you), upload a photo of your work, add your markup to their cost price and let people know about your Cafepress shop (naturally we'd link it with your main website).

Protecting your artwork and copyright

It's very simple. If you add something to the Internet, it is likely that it would be used or copied in some way. Yes, your work is protected by copyright, but more often than not, artists don't know when their work has been taken or how it's being used.

To protect your rights on the original, we optimize photographs of artwork so that they look great on your website, but aren't good enough for print.

Another way to protect your work, is to make an interactive gallery using Flash (see the "Art by Marvic" example above).

If you're adamant that people don't get a hold of copies of your work, however small, then it would be better not to place any on the Internet.

"I've just got another client, who has found my website and made an appointment" ~ M. le Febvre

"The website is absolutely fantastic and better than anything I could have dreamed of." ~ N. Bulder

"Thanks for making the graphic, "Want to run away from your accounts?" It really says it all, doesn't it?" ~ S. Koning