Dec 04 2008
Gallery
After much coding and frustration I’ve finally set up my gallery. It looks good but, it was a pain in the rear to set up. Well, mind you, not the actual set up but getting it to “read” my pictures. Thankfully it’s now at the stage where all I have to do is mess with the pictures, I was in such a obsessive mindset just to get them up there, I wasn’t paying attention to where things should go.
Ahh, the lazy way- what I did was simply set it up to randomly display them.
Something I can’t actually recommend doing.
Okay, moving on to the actual point of this entry.
A bit of what I’ve learned, bits of advice for artists.
*You need a website.
I almost hate to say this, concidering I know not everyone is a ‘webgeek’ like me. In todays super connected, updated at a second’s notice you need a place online to display your work. It doesn’t have to be insanely fancy, heck I just set it all up within my website paradox9.com. Eventually, I might have a webspace solely dedicated to my work, but right now that isn’t something I absolutely must do.
You can also go through a free hosted blog site. Wordpress and Blogger are the best known. Both are great, I persoanlly can say I use them both. As for the look and feel of your website, dark colors tend to make artwork jump more. It doesn’t mean it has to be black, in fact a dark grey or brown seems to work the best.
*If you are selling, the “buy” option needs to be readily available.
If a user has to go searching high and low for the “buy now” button your sales will suffer. It needs to be readily available, or at the very least a blurb on how to access it. As to the printing, that really is a personal choice. You have the option of doing it yourself or outsourcing it.
I outsource personally, at this point it would be absolutely impossible to print out anything myself. As for services, there are a ton to choose from. There are some pay ones that are great, personally I prefer the free ones. I use both lulu and digibug’s pro option.
Granted, this is just a very small list. I know there are a lot more things out there, and hey- If you know any feel free to comment here with it.
So, what other services are out there for artists?
