Since buying the domain names and completing level 5, I have progressed with the representational name for myself "essca" and I subsequently go by this name or "essca.art" on my professional/portfolio instagram account and on tumblr.
https://www.instagram.com/essca.art
Despite choosing this name for myself before the summer, I didn't feel ready to commit to it fully. I am not sure if I like it or if it holds whatever a creative "name" should for a practitioner, therefore this is still in the works. The indecisiveness and uncertainty as to where my practice is best directed or how it is moving forward has also stopped me from going ahead with a website. This and the fact that I want my website to showcase my portfolio at its best and I am not feeling my work is at this stage just yet.I may not feel ready for a website but I enjoy posting my work-in-progress and current pieces to visual blogs such as instagram. Keeping this up over the summer and into this first semester of 3rd year is slowly helping me to gain more confidence in showing my work and getting myself out there - which I have been really struggling with throughout my time at uni.
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What I need to do in order to feel ready to go live with my own website:
• Choose the best pieces of work I have created so far
- Filter out pieces in my ever growing portfolio that I no longer feel best represent me, my
practice and what I am interested in progressing further with in my career as a creative
- Try and stick to more recent pieces as these are more likely to best showcase my
current skills
• Photograph the pieces I have chosen
- High quality photographs of my work in good even lighting are needed to help
professionalise my portfolio and best show what it is I am trying to promote - my
creativity
• Decide on a website layout with elements I feel are most important for promoting my work
• Decide and commit to a name - (or continue with "Jooos" until one better comes along?)
• Create a new brand aesthetic & logo
- The branding I came up with towards the end of Level 5 is ok but I don't feel it best
represents the conceptual, playful, innovative and versatile aspects of my practice. The
aesthetics are too floral and feminine/delicate almost so I would like to create brand
visuals which appear more fresh, unique, bold, interesting and simple so that it can be
easily transferable across promotional products (such as business cards, letter heads,
other online outlets and social media)
• Have other online creative presence areas ready and complete so as to be linked to
directly via my website (behance, tumblr, professional facebook page)
• Have a shop up and running ready to be linked to via the website (big cartel, etsy, etc) so
that people directed to my site have a quick and easy way of finding my work for sale.
Completing the above will help me to feel a lot more prepared to start up my own website therefore over the next few weeks I plan on completing these as soon as possible. Not having a website is proving a lot more frustrating and stunting than I anticipated this year as I know I will feel so much more confident contacting other practitioners or agents or anyone interested in my work, if i can point them in the direction of my website which can do all the persuading for me. I need to let my work speak for itself and social media alone isn't enough.
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Website Key Tips
• Be yourself
• Let people know you are available
• Show your personality
• Be concise
• Keep it fresh
• Show off
• Show your pedigree
• Show your recommendations
• Show live examples (be careful of clients wishes)
• Get your creative message out there
• A website is like a living cv - a vehicle for demonstrating your professional talent, projects
and skills.
• A website acts as a professional online shop "window" / market place. To add a personal
side - include a blog-diary extension / link.
Website generators and templates
• www.wix.com
• www.indexhibit.org
• www.cargocollective.com
• www.squarespace.com
• www.berta.me
• www.tumblr.com
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Do I need a website?
YES! A website will provide me with a strong platform to best represent myself as a practitioner, gain interest, sell pieces and promote my work for future agents and clients.
What do I want to include on my website? - Headings
• An area which clearly and simply showcases my creative work, projects and professional
portfolio
- This should be the default page/tab/heading for when people are first directed to my site
and the first thing they see
• An "about me" // "bio" section to give an insight into me and my profession / history
• A diary / "blog" section to help provide a personal insight into my daily life as a creative
• A "news" section - to inform visitors to the site of any new up and coming projects, things
to watch out for, events, exhibitions, new product range on sale, media coverage, etc
• A link to my online shop
• Contact icons and links to other creative presence online pages / sites (email, Facebook,
tumblr, instagram, Linkedin, etc) - not to appear as "tabs" but as simple icons just below
my name / header on the main title page
Tone of voice
• Fun, playful and colourful
• Clear, simple, usable interface
• True to my personality and my creative nature
• Energetic - I want the experience of visiting my website to be one that is memorable - this
could be achieved through interactive elements ,moving image, gifs, videos, sliding
visuals and possibly sound (a new track each week?)
• Professional - in areas such as my biography and the way I list details about my portfolio
pieces on show etc.
• Up to date - the content needs to be kept up to date regularly so as to keep the people
visiting it, coming back for more
Examples of practitioners websites:
Mark Conlan
 |
| http://markconlan.com |
Peepshow Collective
What works, what I like and why?
• Peepshows website opens with a clean spread of work examples which helps to give a
visitor to the site an obvious overview of the type of work this collective produces
• The sizing of the thumbnails mean a lot of content and examples of work can fit on the
page at one time, but there is enough visual information that each piece is clear
• A nice touch is that when you hover over a thumbnail before clicking it as a link to larger
version of the piece, information and the piece title appears frosted over the
thumbnail itself. Information is revealed when you want it to be which is helpful and stops
unnecessary info clogging up this main portfolio page
• A simple logo appears at the top of the page in the left hand corner no matter what page
you are on - which keeps the aesthetic of this site consistent and provides a "home
page" link for visitors to re-navigate too when visiting different areas of the site
• Contact link "icons" appear at the bottom of each page, frosted out so at so not take
away from the page content too much. This is how I envisage including my contact
details on my own website.
• 5 Simple headings make the content of the website clear and concise
• This website includes a tab/heading for a sign up "mailing list". This could be something
to consider in the future, when / if (*hopefully*) I become a successful practitioner and I
aim to send out info, news letters and mailouts to prospective clients and fans of my work
who have signed up via my site
Mr Gauky
https://www.mrgauky.com/
What works, what I like and why:
• The colour scheme of the whole site reflects the practitioners aesthetic in their work
which is a cleaver thing to consider when thinking about how I want my website to look
• Again a similar feature to the peepshow website - when hovering over a thumbnail,
information about the piece comes into view but in this example the information turns a
neon green which helps it stand out
• I like how drop-down menus are neatly included on the left hand side of each page for
clear and easy access to all areas of the site.
• The artists logo remains in the top left hand corner of the site no matter where you
navigate to which helps keep a constant feel to the aesthetic and reminder of who's work
you are looking at
• The tiled aesthetic of the portfolio page is another thing to consider in my own site. This
doesn't necessarily reflect the "simple & uncluttered" look I am going for, however these
tiles add interest to the page and a large overview of this practitioners work can be seen
at any one time which is helpful and intriguing.
Loish
http://loish.net/
What works, what I like and why:
• This website is great and so clean. It opens with just the left hand side navigation bar overlaid on top of 1 piece of her work - which is simple and inviting for visitors to the site. Not too much information given off on the home page can stop someone being bombarded with too much information and intrigued to find out more by clicking on the menus.
• Directly underneath this artists name in the top left hand corner is all her contact icon links. I think this is a cleaver place to keep these links so that a visitor can find them at all times.
• Again this artists keeps the navigation menu pane on the left hand side as drop down menus. This is helpful because you can see where you are in the site and where else you can visit.
• I am not a fan of the inconsistent font once the drop down menu has been revealed, such as the font used for the various works uploaded to the portfolio part of the site. If I was to use a similar format & layout for my website - I think what would be more successful would be the links within the drop down menus featured with the same font throughout - just in a different font / highlight colour to distinguish the link from others.
• The main part of this website that I love and I think really works well with this artists practice is the portfolio sections. Once a work has been clicked on - the work loads as a scrollable set of pieces including original roughs and digital sketches before the final complete piece. I think this is great and really shows an artists potential as a problem solver and their workings, as well as the piece available for purchase through her shop. This is a nice interactive and different touch to feature on a site - would this be something relevant for my own?