Blues & Jazz

R And B Artists

Sep 18, 2011 blues music

12 Tips for Designing an Artist Website That Showcases Your Art

Summary
Here’s the scoop on what you must know when designing a website to showcase your art, impress galleries, and win over collectors. Learn how to avoid the mistakes most emerging artists make when creating their online portfolio.

1.You need an artists website

Any artist who can classify themselves as either “emerging” or “mid-career” will definitely benefit from having their own website to promote their work. At this stage of your career it is important to be able to have a place where anyone in the world can easily access and view your work.

2.Know who you are trying to impress

Are you trying to engage a Soho gallery to sell your $20,000 paintings or sell $5 prints to children in Korea? That Soho gallery might not be impressed when they see your online-store selling prints and art cards – but on the other hand, you could make a very handsome living if you really knew how to market those art cards.

3.Make your website fit with your overall art marketing strategy

A website is most effective when it is part of a larger overall marketing strategy for your art. This includes mailings, lots of in-person gallery visits and presentations, regular (physical) showings of your work, and developing relationships with the art world. An effectively planned website can greatly compliment and simplify your other marketing efforts.

4.There is a real market for art on the internet

The internet is quickly becoming an accepted place to showcase your art to collectors and arts professionals. They might still want to see your work in person before they buy, but the fact remains: they saw it first on your website! Having an online art presence is very important at this time.

5.Have your own website and a website portfolio service

A website portfolio service (e.g. www.absolutearts.com or www.art-exchange.com is like an online slide registry. For a fee you can upload images of your work together with a bio, artist statement, and resume. They have many visitors and are a convenient way to make your work accessible to potential clients. The down side is that they don’t display your work well, and there is little flexibility in how the art is showcased.

Your own website, on the other hand will require more work to promote, but you’ll be able to present the work in the most beautiful way. Remember the times you’ve been taken into the dimmer room in a commercial gallery? How that art which looked fairly good on the main gallery wall suddenly became something you had to take home? That’s how a good artist’s website should showcase your work.

We recommend both options – they are a perfect compliment.

6. Have a website that collectors and art professionals will enjoy

Here are some common elements which most dealers and galleries would agree on for your website design:

- Keep the site simple and elegant with the focus on the art itself and don’t overpower the art with a site that looks too busy
- Avoid advertising such as banner adds or sidebar adds. If you must have them, put them in a separate “resource” section
- Avoid complex effects like flash movies. In the time it takes to play your exotic entry page, your visitor may have moved on. Include your bio, artist statement, resume, contact information, gallery(s) of your work, contact information, and a pricelist.

Showcase your work beautifully

You need to have visual design skills to create a beautiful artist website. Here are some points to get you started:

- Most Important: Use high-quality, professionally-photographed images. Excellence in, excellence out!
- Keep the website simple and elegant with the focus on the art.
- Create multiple galleries to compliment the work – just as a good physical gallery would do.
- Choose colors that compliment (not overpower) the work. Think of the colors you would use in a physical gallery to showcase your work – neutral colors like crème, white, gray, and good safe choices.
- Think “minimalist” not “busy” for the layout.
- Keep your copy (text) brief. Let the art speak for itself!

7.Bring collectors and galleries to your website

Its no use having that stunning website sitting in hyperspace. Make it work for you! Here are the ways to bring quality visitors:

Search Engines: If your website has been well optimized for search engines, a search on your name or your style of art should bring up your website in the first few pages of results.

Letters of Introduction: A letter of introduction sent to a gallery or dealer is a very effective way to bring a qualified visitor to your website. Better still is to include a brochure or postcard of your work with the letter.

Advertising online or in magazines: For example, if your art is minimalist and modern in style, a banner add on an interior design website focused on the same minimalist ethic could draw a lot of traffic to your site.

You need to be able to sell your work on the internet.

But there are many ways to do it. More important than anything is that you have clear and up-to-date contact information on your website. If a buyer likes your work enough to bring out their checkbook, they will normally be happy to call you to close the sale.

It’s also handy to be able to sell directly from your website, especially if you sell lower-cost reproductions. There are simple and cost-effective ways to do this.

8. Think again before designing your own website.

- Have you really added up the total cost? Here are some questions to consider before you start designing:
- Do you have visual design skills/training?
- Can you wait several months for the site to be ready?
- Can you afford to give up a month or more of your valuable artist time?
- Do you have all the computer software and the relatively-new computer needed to build a high-quality website?
- Are you fully trained in your design software?

Can you answer “Yes” to all of the above? If so, you might think about doing it yourself. Otherwise, hire a designer!

9. Choose your website-designer thoughtfully

The most important thing here is to remember what you are trying to create – a beautiful online gallery space to elegantly show your beautiful work – this is very different from building a high-volume website selling printer ink cartridges and paper rolls!

Look for the ability to design a space to present your work. One way to do this is to find artist websites that you like and then contact the artist to get the name of their designer.

10. Know what you should pay

Artist’s website development prices range from a few hundred to tens of thousands of dollars. Typically, bigger design firms have larger overheads and will be significantly more expensive. On the other hand, Joe down the street can probably build you a website for $200 – but you probably don’t want that website!

At Beautiful Artist Websites we have packages ranging from $700 to $2000 for simple elegant artists websites with different levels of functionality. We can also develop fully customized sites to your specifications with prices based on requirements.

About the Author

Beautiful Artist Websites is a design studio based in Santa Monica, California and Minneapolis, Minnesota. We specialize in the development of beautifully designed artist websites that showcase artists’ work to arts professionals and collectors. Our mission is to help you sell your art. That’s it. There are thousands of good designers to choose from – but only a few understand the special needs of showcasing art. We do.We love art. And we are passionate about design.; We aim for premium quality clean and elegant solutions for all your design needs. Whether it’s a website, an artist brochure or artist DVD we can create an integrated look and feel that will capture the essence of your vision as an artist.

Unsigned 7: R & B Singers and Original Music

’80s Soul Gold $19.99 Hip-O Records, the reissue arm of the major label Universal, often licenses tracks from other record companies to broaden the selections on its compilation albums. But in assembling ’80s Soul Gold, an entry in Hip-O’s discount-priced series of double-CD collections, compilation producer Harry Weinger must have felt that such borrowings were unnecessary. After all, Universal, a company formed by the merger of MCA and PolyGram, already has deep holdings in soul music, starting with the Motown catalog and including MCA itself, which was a big player on the R&B scene in the ’80s. The 30-track album Weinger has compiled cannot be called a greatest soul hits of the decade exactly. It contains only three songs that were among Billboard magazine’s 25 biggest R&B records of the ’80s — the Dazz Band’s “Let It Whip,” Smokey Robinson’s “Being with You,” and Rockwell’s “Somebody’s Watching Me.” But it is hardly lacking in hits. Every track but one reached the R&B Top Ten (the exception, Billy Preston and Syreeta’s “With You I’m Born Again,” hit the Top Ten of the pop and adult contemporary charts), and 16 — more than half — went to number one. As such, the album provides a good sense of what R&B music sounded like in the decade. That sense is enhanced by Weinger’s wise decision to sequence the album in roughly chronological order. The ’80s was a transitional decade for R&B (as is every decade, come to think of it), and the beats that were moving listeners early on were replaced by other ones as time went on. By the end of the second disc, one can hear hip-hop coming on with the cutups and James Brown sampling of Vanessa Williams’ “The Right Stuff” and the very ’90s-like sound of Guy’s “I Like,” the final track. ~ William Ruhlmann, Rovi

1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die: A Listener’s Life List $19.95 The musical adventure of a lifetime. The most exciting book on music in years. A book of treasure, a book of discovery, a book to open your ears to new worlds of pleasure. Doing for music what Patricia Schultz—author of the phenomenal 1,000 Places to See Before You Die—does for travel, Tom Moon recommends 1,000 recordings guaranteed to give listeners the joy, the mystery, the revelation, the sheer fun of great music.This is a book both broad and deep, drawing from the diverse worlds of classical, jazz, rock, pop, blues, country, folk, musicals, hip-hop, world, opera, soundtracks, and more. It’s arranged alphabetically by artist to create the kind of unexpected juxtapositions that break down genre bias and broaden listeners’ horizons— it makes every listener a seeker, actively pursuing new artists and new sounds, and reconfirming the greatness of the classics. Flanking J. S. Bach and his six entries, for example, are the little-known R&B singer Baby Huey and the ’80s Rastafarian hard-core punk band Bad Brains. Farther down the list: The Band, Samuel Barber, Cecelia Bartoli, Count Basie, and Afropop star Waldemer Bastos.Each entry is passionately written, with expert listening notes, fascinating anecdotes, and the occasional perfect quote—"Your collection could be filled with nothing but music from Ray Charles," said Tom Waits, "and you’d have a completely balanced diet." Every entry identifies key tracks, additional works by the artist, and where to go next. And in the back, indexes and playlists for different moods and occasions.

100 Essential Modern Poems $24.95 Inspired and inspirational, worldly wise, deeply felt, and often delightfully funny—here in one compact volume are 100 of the greatest poems written in English over the last century, memorable masterpieces that everyone should know and enjoy. Selected and introduced by Joseph Parisi, former longtime editor of Poetry magazine, this brilliant collection brings together the greatest poems by all the classic authors, along with the choicest works by today’s most accomplished artists in America and abroad. From W. H. Auden and T. S. Eliot to John Ashbery and A. R. Ammons; Elizabeth Bishop and Marianne Moore to Sylvia Plath and Mary Oliver; Robert Frost and W. B. Yeats to Allen Ginsberg and Thom Gunn, this comprehensive anthology features the poems that have best expressed the spirit of our times and helped create modern culture. In addition to such ground-breaking works as “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and “Howl,” Mr. Parisi has included the incisive social satire and whimsical wordplay of such wits as Dorothy Parker, Ogden Nash, and Frank O’Hara. Among contemporary poets in the book are Seamus Heaney, Jane Kenyon, Rita Dove, Sharon Olds, Paul Muldoon, Adrienne Rich, and the redoubtable Billy Collins, all of whom have already achieved wide popular acclaim for poems that speak compellingly about modern life and the perennial concerns of the human heart. Mr. Parisi provides a general introduction to the book and introduces each poem with a brief biographical and critical note. For anyone who wishes to discover or to re-experience the most important and vital poems of our time, 100 Essential Modern Poems is, quite simply, indispensable.

112 (Band) $51.6 New – High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! 112 (pronounced “one-twelve”) is an American R&B quartet from Atlanta, Georgia. Formerly artists on Diddy’s Bad Boy Records, the group signed to the Def Soul roster in 2002. They had great success in the late 1990s and early 2000s, most notably winning a Grammy in 1997 with the song “I’ll Be Missing You” with Puff Daddy and Faith Evans for Best Rap Performance by A Duo Or Group. The group has sold collectively a total of about 16] million records

112 (band) $42.99 High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! 112 (pronounced “one-twelve”) is an American R&B quartet from Atlanta, Georgia. Formerly artists on Diddy’s Bad Boy Records, the group signed to the Def Soul roster in 2002. They had great success in the late 1990s and early 2000s, most notably winning a Grammy in 1997 with the song “I’ll Be Missing You” with Puff Daddy and Faith Evans for Best Rap Performance by A Duo Or Group. The group has sold collectively a total of about 16+ million records world wide.

18 Clear Pinstripe Bass Drum Head $29.46 PINSTRIPE heads have remained as one of Remos most popular drumheads since its 1973 introduction. The well-known and heavily recorded PINSTRIPE has a very focused low-pitched sound with moderate attack and response characteristics. PINSTRIPEs quick decay makes them ideal heads for the “fat” sounds of rock and R&B. Theyre also considered ideal for creating a deeper, controlled drum sound in studio and live situations. PINSTRIPE heads are made with two 7 mil plys with a measured layer of a ring-reducing agent applied between them at the outer edge of their trademark stripe. This internal muffling dampens the high frequency overtones for a warmer resonance. PINSTRIPE heads are available in the classic clear finish, as well as coated for an even warmer, more controlled sound. Theres also a PINSTRIPE with an EBONY finish. Clear PINSTRIPESClear PINSTRIPES have remained as one of the best selling drumheads since its 1973 introduction. A classic clear PINSTRIPE sound is an open, warm, resonant tone with plenty of attack. Some notable artists who rely on Clear PINSTRIPES include Lars Ulrich, Mike Portnoy, Gerald Heyward, Paul Leim, Julio Figueroa, and John Otto.

1998 Billboard Music Yearbook $70.95 New – The Titanic soundtrack album’s unsinkable success on the 1998 Billboard charts was just the tip of the iceberg. The thousands of songs, CDs and artists that hit Billboard’s Pop, Rock, Country, R&B and Adult Contemporary charts in 1998 now appear in Joel Whitburn’s 1998 Billboard Music Yearbook – from Fastball to Master P to Brandy & Monica to Tim McGraw. Billboard’s 11 major music charts are covered in 11 separate artist-by-artist sections which give detailed chart data on every hit. For e

20 Clear Pinstripe Bass Drum Head $29.89 PINSTRIPE heads have remained as one of Remos most popular drumheads since its 1973 introduction. The well-known and heavily recorded PINSTRIPE has a very focused low-pitched sound with moderate attack and response characteristics. PINSTRIPEs quick decay makes them ideal heads for the “fat” sounds of rock and R&B. Theyre also considered ideal for creating a deeper, controlled drum sound in studio and live situations. PINSTRIPE heads are made with two 7 mil plys with a measured layer of a ring-reducing agent applied between them at the outer edge of their trademark stripe. This internal muffling dampens the high frequency overtones for a warmer resonance. PINSTRIPE heads are available in the classic clear finish, as well as coated for an even warmer, more controlled sound. Theres also a PINSTRIPE with an EBONY finish. Clear PINSTRIPESClear PINSTRIPES have remained as one of the best selling drumheads since its 1973 introduction. A classic clear PINSTRIPE sound is an open, warm, resonant tone with plenty of attack. Some notable artists who rely on Clear PINSTRIPES include Lars Ulrich, Mike Portnoy, Gerald Heyward, Paul Leim, Julio Figueroa, and John Otto.

2003 Billboard Music Yearbook $15.75 Used – Clay Aiken and Ruben Studdard. Elvis Presley. 50 Cent. Toby Keith. Uncle Kracker. Audioslave. Linkin Park. Staind. Just a small sampling of the names you’ll find in Joel Whitburn’s 2003 Billboard Music Yearbook – the only annual recap of all the artists and all the action on Billboard’s major music charts! Eleven complete music sections: The Billboard Hot 100 * Bubbling Under the Hot 100 * Hot Country Singles & Tracks * Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks * Adult Contemporary * Hot Dance Clu

2003 Billboard Music Yearbook $79.95 New – Clay Aiken and Ruben Studdard. Elvis Presley. 50 Cent. Toby Keith. Uncle Kracker. Audioslave. Linkin Park. Staind. Just a small sampling of the names you’ll find in Joel Whitburn’s 2003 Billboard Music Yearbook – the only annual recap of all the artists and all the action on Billboard’s major music charts! Eleven complete music sections: The Billboard Hot 100 * Bubbling Under the Hot 100 * Hot Country Singles & Tracks * Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks * Adult Contemporary * Hot Dance Club

Tags: art, blog, design, illustration, music, r and b artists, r and b artists of 2011, r and b artists of the 2000, r and b artists of the 80's, r and b artists of the 90's