Regardless of what kind of art you create, as an artist, you have unique and specific needs for your website design. You might be wondering:
How do I showcase my work on a website?
How do I structure my site since I don’t exactly have a store?
What do I need to include about me... and what do my clients want to know about an artist, anyways?
If you don’t know what you’ll need when you start your creative business website, read on for 5 must-haves for your website design! All website examples are Clear Quartz Creative launches - feel free to click over to view the live sites!
1. Showcase your work.
Showing your art is essential for your business as an artist. But, while many artists do a great job of creating art, they aren’t always great at showing their art to their customers. It’s important to promote photos of your art clearly and consistently.
The Anneli Epp photography site features extensive galleries depicting her entire body of work. The images are shown unframed, in full detail. This way, potential clients can see the richness of the colours and can experience the collections the way they were meant to be viewed, as a unit.
2. Give insight into your creative process.
Artists often have a tried and true process to create their work, and only now are they beginning to share this behind the scenes with their clients on social media platforms and their websites. As an artist, you likely incorporate personal touches into how you create and shape your art. Whether you use different types of materials or follow a unique process, customers and viewers want to know the inside scoop into how it’s made.
When it comes to the creative process, Crystal Nykoluk’s Earthshaper site uses dreamy statements in the headers that explain the artistic statement that explains why and how she creates her earthenware ceramics. Through visuals and photography, we’ve highlighted the various stages of her work and have brought viewers into her studio so there is an aspect of looking behind the scenes.
3. Offer clear and easy ways to contact you.
Contact pages are an important element of navigation headers and footers on artist’s websites. Some clients will prefer to contact you with the easy-to-use form on your site, and others will prefer to contact you via email. Art galleries may even want to send you materials through the mail, so including your post office box address will make that an easy yes. Great artist websites feature this information on the Contact page and on the footer to help with SEO (search engine optimization.)
Social media and newsletters are other growing ways to reach out and keep up-to-date about what’s going on within your business. Adding ways for clients to opt into these on your site means that you can communicate when you have a new show, and also share snippets of your artistic processes with behind the scenes content.
4. Make clear how your art can fit into the purchaser’s lifestyle or home.
Your artwork is more than just a decorative piece that hangs on the wall. Today’s art purchasers want to see the interaction between your art and their everyday life. Art pieces of all types and sizes are great to see in a living space for scale and spacial interactions.
On Rebecca Riel’s weaving site, we’ve paid attention to showcasing various pieces from a similar point of view but pinpointing different aspects that personify the artwork being shown. We’ve alternated between closeup images and wide-angle shots to give an idea of scale and texture. The Riel Finishings site depicts the many ways her creations are scattered throughout a home. This way, we’re clear on how the artist envisions their pieces in the everyday life of their viewers and customers.
5. A clear way to buy or order your artwork.
Creating a shop for customers to buy and order your work is paramount. A gallery is a great and straightforward way to show your work, but it needs to be purchasable and deliverable to customers.
The Mandart by Amanda Onchulenko Squarespace website combines her artwork gallery and her store into one webpage. Instead of making the customer go through multiple pages to get to purchase a piece of work, Amanda focuses her purchasing and her artwork together to make it easy for her customers.
Essentially, if your artist website checks off these 5 boxes, you are well on your way to an excellent artist's website design! If you're missing one or more, a few updates will help to make your site more user-friendly for your visitor and encourage art sales.
The sites referenced above are made on either Squarespace or Wix by me at Clear Quartz Creative with the Expanded website experience. Artists looking to create a website, if you have questions, please book a free, non-salesy discovery call so we can discuss creating your perfect website!
