Choosing web site development software to showcase your artwork

I’m a sculptor who has worked in web development to pay the bills for years. I have been engaged in a PhD program and working full time for the past five years, so my sculpture has been on the back burner. I am finally through with course work and qualifying exams, so I am free! Well, almost. I still have that dissertation thing to write.

Meanwhile, I have kicked my sculpture career back into gear, and one way to share my work is through the web. I set out to get a quick site up and running that would accomplish a few goals: act as a touchstone for galleries and perspective customers to learn more about my work, increase awareness of my work by expanding my audience, and create an avenue to sell a limited set of pieces. After writing business and marketing plans, I set out to develop a site.

There are many different ways to develop an artist’s web site, and the software solution you choose has to match both your goals and the medium you work in. A fantastic artist who now works for Electronic Arts and is a professional photographer uses Smugmug to display and sell his work through http://www.joelwadephotography.com. This site is impressive, and if you are selling photographs, this seems like the way to go.

The first step with any of these options is to register your domain name. You can do this through a hosting service (I use Dreamhost, but you could use register.com, GoDaddy etc). The process is pretty simple; run a search to see if the name you want is available. If it is, register it and pay a fee. I recommend automatic re-registration so you don’t lose your domain name. Think carefully about your domain name. What will it look like in print? Is it easy to say and remember? Can it create a strange acronym? This is your calling card, so spend some time on it.

If you are selling objects, you have a range of options from extremely simple, what you see is what you get (wysiwyg), to code it yourself using stylesheets and notepad. I started my career the notepad way and I am partial to having that level of control. But I also want to spend my time making sculpture, not developing web sites. I’ll offer an overview from least effort to develop and maintain to the most effort to develop and maintain. To spoil the ending –I choose the most complex, Dreamweaver, after trying Iweb.

Easiest route:

Etsy.com

If you want to sell your work, Etsy is a web “store” that makes it easy for artists to upload a photograph, set a price, and sell their work. Etsy is a really simple, low maintenance way to get your work out there. Twenty cents to post a single piece, and Etsy takes a percentage if you sell your work.

Wordpress or Blogger

The next step up in complexity is to create a blog. You can really create some sophisticated, interesting sites using this software. Check out Norm Hines for an example: http://normhines.com/ Either of these sites make it easy to get started with and easy to configure, customize, brand, and importantly, maintain. Free to set up and maintain your site, so a great option.

IWeb

If you use a Mac, the IWeb and IPhoto combination is pretty powerful and very easy to use. After purchasing the software, you will also need to start an account using a hosting service. If you are convinced that this software combination is right for you and that you don’t plan to use anything else, than a Mobile Me account from Mac (soon to be ICloud, and free) is the way to go. $99 per year to have your web page, photos, documents, and contacts all hosted on the web by Apple. Once your hosting account is set up, IWeb follows a few simple steps to get things up and running. I’ll cover these steps in a different blog post.

Dreamweaver

The last option is to use more powerful, but more complex to use and difficult to understand web development software, such as Dreamweaver. You can write the code by hand in notepad, previewing in a browser as you go, but Dreamweaver offers site management tools, code hints, and publishing options that make it a very efficient tool to use. This is the tool I eventually decided to build the site with, after giving IWeb a try. With any of the other options you will find limitations – the ability to add meta tags, the ability to add more complex scripting or develop a customized contact form all become a series of trade-offs and compromises when using the other tools. With Dreamweaver you can write it yourself if you can’t find something that fits the bill perfectly.

I’ll write more about building the actual site in IWeb and Dreamweaver, as well as using social networking tools such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter to promote it. Leave a comment if I missed anything!