Do You Want to Build a Successful Artist Website? Here Are Some Advice for Art Professional

It’s hard to be an artist. In today’s ecosystem, artist versus artist is a common occurrence. Each artist must struggle to show their profile on social media, having a social media presence is a must, you simply cannot survive without it.

But, on the other hand, every artist must have a platform for themselves. Something that they can fully control and manage. Of course, the simplest is having a website.

Today there are many option to building an artist website:

1. Squarespace
2. Wix
3. Webflow
4. Google Domain with Sites
5. WordPress

Depending on which one you choose, each of those option requires different level of technicality. The easiest to use could be Squarespace but you still need to have a bit of understanding on what you want to show in your website.

Now, what kind of website must you have? Surprisingly, there is a specific informal rule for an artist website. Following these rules will ensure you are viewed as a professional artist and not just another amateur. Because, as we know, there is nothing more off-putting than having an amateur website, especially if you are looking for attention from galleries, collectors or other important people.

Here are the rules to follow:

1. Have a minimum visual overall look. This means, let your art do the talking and not your website ornaments or decorations. Using a white background and a black or dark grey font is preferred.
2. Have a portfolio section comprising of a selection of your best work. There is no need to show all of your work, select the best and make sure it gets the attention it deserves.
3. Have an artist resume or bio page, with enough information to be clear but not too much that it become an autobiographical page of its own.
4. Have a contact page that will make it easy for interested party to get in touch if they need to. Put an email address that you use specifically for this or have a secure contact form instead, remember to always keep your data and privacy protected.

When it comes to font, it’s best to keep it to a minimal. Select one contemporary but trendy font with clear and functional type for your main text. Some selection could be:

1. Helvetica – Popular font with sans-serif typeface, that is widely used. Developed in 1957, this font style is made popular because it was said to be Steve Jobs’s favorite font.
2. Roboto – The popular default Android font, Roboto, is open-source and free to use. It is optimized for screens, and may feel familiar to users of Android app.
3. Inter – Designed by Rasmus Andersson, this open source font is also optimized for screen. Compare to other neo-grotesque, such as Helvetica, Inter has more spacing.
4. Work Sans – Compared to other neo-grotesque, this one has a bit more quirk to it.

And then, for some elements, you may choose one Display type font. Here are some ideas:

 

Karllina Handwriting Signature

Another handwritten typeface model that has a natural chic nuance is Karllina. Yet, the curve is more clean, simple, and modern compared to the other two mentioned previously.

You can access and use this font on PC and Mac, by installing it without additional design software. Providing multilingual support similar to Evossry, Karllina poses as a good choice of handwritten typeface for constructing a label, watermark, advertisement, social media post, loo, and many other design and branding projects.

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Agatha Christy Signature Collection

While Agatha Christie, that brilliant English Writer, brings many stories with detective and crime themes, Agatha Christy font, contradictory to it, offers thin, smooth, and clean lines and ligature that drops more romantic and sweet vibes. 

You can use it at its best to produce quotes design, photography, product design, invitation, or stationery. Don’t hesitate to try using it for branding or logo projects, too, by combining it with different typefaces.  

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Southam Demo Font

Southam Demo offers you a more natural flow and hands scratches-like signature text. It also has an ink style that you can find when observing the character set, from upper and lower case to the beg.swash and end.swash. 

With that natural-like build, you can use Southam Demo font for business cards, product design, watermarks, photography, and wedding design projects. The font is available for PC and Mac, and accessible for Ai, InDesign, CorelDraw, Microsoft Words, and Photoshop, of course. 

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Edward Signature Script

Another versatile hand-drawn signature with some masculine touch that you can choose is Edward Signature Script. With a simple installation to your PC or Mac, you can use this classy and masculine font for many design purposes without additional design software.

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Magnolia Stylish Signature

Simple stroke yet sophisticated, Magnolia font delivers a clear and stylish typeface. The font is also easy to mingle with other typefaces. You can apply this signature font for wedding invitations, branding and logo designs, and photography with its characteristics. 

With simple installation to your PC or Mac, you will also get support for special characters like ä ö ü Ä Ö Ü ß ¿ ¡.

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Chopin Script Font

Chopin Script font is another handwritten typeface with that old yet classy nuance. If you feel the need for a fancy mood, this font is surely the answer. Chopin Script is perfect for designing a restaurant logo and branding materials, websites for the culinary industry, wedding invitations, or even business cards. 

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Sydhartta Stylish Signature

Sydhartta Stylish Signature fonts present clean strokes and curves. It has a thin ligature, which makes its appearance more stylish. Use it for various display designs to get a more fabulous look by the simple installation to your PC or Mac.  

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Creattion Demo Font

Comes with an ink pen effect, this Creattion looks like manly natural hand-drawn that can generate attraction to people who look at it. This font will go perfectly for branding like interviews, business cards, product logos, and other visual design projects. It offers multilingual support and is packed with rich font features, including Stylistic alternates, Stylistic sets.

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Halmahera Handwritten Script

Halmahera has sharp yet flowy strokes that look seamlessly fresh. If you want to create awesome design projects for branding and logos, advertisements, or social media posts, try to use this one to get that freshness. 

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Southampton Signature Style

Signature font with signature style, Southampton has a fancy typographic that is packed in tons of glyphs, within uppercase, lowercase, numerals, and punctuation. Not only is the character set available in the three formats you need, but the swash will go along with WOFF, TTF, and OTF formats also. 

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Here are some more details on each page that you should have on your artist website:

• For each of your work, have a proper metadata including information for the title of the piece, year, medium, surface and dimensions.
• For your bio, include data like year of birth, location of birth, current location (city or country), exhibition history, and any applicable achievements like publication, residencies or even awards.
• Depending on your reputation, you can also have a page to showcase comments from critic or a news page to let people when is your next exhibition, but make sure this is updated regularly or else just use social media to inform your followers.
• Should you have a store page? It might be better to just have a page showcasing your works and maybe a page for displaying your monographic book, because having a dedicated store page requires a lot of maintenance.

Remember that the function of your website is to have a clear showcase and information. It is not a problem to have a very common layout and even a structure that is similar to most other artist website the goal here is to present your work clearly. If you work digitally and have a work in the form of a website or web based technology, this website should be on a different site than your professional page.

You also need to be careful with your domain name, it’s better to have a low key, professional domain name rather than something that is clearly designed to create attention, such as greatpaintings.com or buyamazingpainting.com.

Also, avoid using free hosting site as it may show unwanted or irrelevant ads that will distract your visitors. Remember that this website is aimed at specific type of visitors.

Resist the temptation to have a blog on this website. If you must, have your blog on a different website. Generally it is better to avoid talking about your work too much and rather try having a critic or other professional talk about your work instead. This also applies to your works or portfolio section, just have the required information and let the work do the talking.

Regarding your works, it is generally better to not display any price on your works. You should direct people to contact page or even have them contact you through an art gallery or visit your next exhibition.

This may sound cliche, but in the long term, it is better to be a bit elusive.

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