Web Design Tips for Artists

I look at a lot of artists web sites, and a lot of them are unnecessarily difficult to navigate. I thought I'd write up the common design problems I find, based on the opinions I developed as a web and interface designer for 11 years.

If you are an artist and you want your artwork to be seen, make sure your site follows these guidelines:

Navigation

• Number One Rule: Keep it Simple
  Create one neat row of buttons down the side or across the top. Every page should show all the buttons to get to every other section of your site. The navigation buttons should never shuffle, move, or disappear.
• If you are not sure how to solve a navigation problem, look at other websites. Chances are someone else has solved the problem already, and there is probably even a standard way users are expecting to navigate. Don't re-invent the wheel.
• A button to get "Home", that says "Home" and nothing but "Home" should be on every page, in a logical place like the upper left or right corner.
• Your name is your logo. If it clicks, it should go back to your home page. It should not open my email program and begin to compose an email to you.
  

Gallery

• Make it as easy as possible for a visitor to see your artwork. The gallery should be no more than one click from the home page.
• Gallery should be a page of small thumbnails of each image. Do not make the thumbnails tiny square crops of the larger painting. The thumbnail should be the whole painting.
• If the user clicks a thumbnail, the painting should expand to a size big enough to comfortably see the painting. Between 500 and 1000 pixels on the long side.
• When the image is big, the user should be able to click "Next/Previous" buttons to see the rest of your paintings. Don't make the user go back to the Thumbnail page to see the next image.
• The "Next/Previous" buttons should be big enough to click easily, and should not move. Do not make your visitor reposition the mouse over and over to click the Next button.
• You can separate your artwork into different galleries or categories, but let the visitor scroll though ALL your images with the Next button.
  

Flash
Why sites made completely in Flash are a bad idea

• Search
  Search engines cannot read the text in an all-Flash website, so your site will not be catalogued and presented in search results as often and as well as it could be.
• Bookmarks
  The user can't bookmark individual pages to save paintings they like. Allow users to find you again!
• Back button
  Most users use the back button a lot while they navigate. Since an all-Flash site is embedded on one browser page, the back button takes the user not to the previous page within your site as they expect, but back to your entry page or completely out of your site to the previous site visited.
• Images are too small
  I don't know if it is a template that Flash site builders are following, but you all make your images too small, and don't allow the user to make them bigger. The "zoom" feature is annoying because the visitor is forced to peer at the image through a keyhole.
• Difficult to update
  Flash sites are the most stale sites out there. That's because they require a lot of work to update, a lot more work than a non-Flash site.

Miscellaneous Tips

• Frames=BAD
  For about 10 minutes in 1994 a software engineer somewhere must have thought frames could be a useful navigation tool. They were wrong. Don't Use Frames Ever.
• Web design is not print design
  Things that may look pretty in print, like tiny grey text and icons, simply do not work on a web page. Above all your site should be Clickable, Visable and Usable. Attractive is good, no one wants a goofy site, but you CAN make a clean and attractive site with buttons a user can easily click.
• Branding
  Your name is your brand and it should be on every page and in the title bar of the browser of every page. Even better, type your name in text (not a graphic) at least someplace on the page (even the copyright), so a visitor can copy and paste your name. Make it easy for visitors to see, remember and record your name.
• Location
  Say where you are! Don't share your address online of course, just include your city, state and country. Visitors to your website are coming from everywhere, orient them to your geographic location.
• Email launching
  Don't make your "Contact" button launch my email program and compose an email to you. The Contact button should go to a Contact page.
• Launching browsers
  Don't launch multiple browsers/tabs as the visitor clicks around your site, keep your site all within one window.

Final Word
Don't attempt to "be creative" with web site design. Your artwork should be what makes your site unique. Visitors who like your art will remember the art, not the decorations and cute buttons. Clean, professional, and organized are more important to communicate than "arty". Sometimes a few tasteful design elements work, but only if you are, or you hire, an experienced professional designer. Otherwise, just keep it simple.

UPDATE June 25: Lisa Gloria of Art Studio Secrets has published a great post about how to create a cheap, easy website that's a great solution for artists!

Comments

[rahina qh]

Got me thinking: Personally I dislike it when I click on an image and it is not as big as I would like it. Of course we would never view a painting so close up but for my purposes eg examining brushwork or detail it is a must. I'd appreciate any feedback you could give me on my blog layout as, to me, my blog is fairly simple but it may not seem so to those who are unfamiliar with the layout. r.

[Sadie J. Valeri]

Hi Rahina, I think most people are pretty familiar with basic blog layouts and yours is a fine example of a nice clean template that makes the artwork the showcase.

I agree images of artwork should be nice and big. Sometimes people avoid posting images that are as big as you would need to see detailed brushstrokes, but that's to avoid someone selling prints of the artwork without the artist's permission.

I don't worry about that too much personally. If someone can find a way to make money off of prints of my artwork, I'd love to find out how they do it.

[René PleinAir.]

Thanks for this posting it gets you thinking, ...

I would like to add one point;

Try to look to your site as being a foreigner as well, I mean with out understanding any English or for example Dutch, you should still be able to go to ones site, ...

[Sadie J. Valeri]

That's a good point, Rene. I agree a well-designed site should be accessible in any language.

[Carolina]

Very interesting information. Thanks for sharing.

[silvina]

I'm often quite frustrated with complicated art websites.

I'm thinking about designing my own website. These are excellent tips to keep in mind for when I actually get around to it. Thank you!

[K.K.]

Beside the it gurus and professional there is big count of the normal people who keeps good knowledge about web factor and some of them owns websites as well but they are lacked with web building and designing skills. For such people I would suggest to follow http://www.zimplit.com/about.html" title=" Web Designing Software" rel="nofollow">Web Designing Software or Content Management System as it is so easy to use and we can build customized websites fast and easy way…

[Linda Tracey Brandon]

Sadie, in case I haven't said this recently... thanks again for your generosity in maintaining this terrific site. I always learn so much. I really enjoy your new work, by the way. Keep posting. :)

[Sadie J. Valeri]

Thank you Linda! I enjoy it, it's what I think about anyway, easy to write it up and post it :)

K.K., I checked out the web development site you linked to. I agree it's a good way to make a simple site for people who don't know how to use web design software. However, it does not create a good interface for a gallery of clickable images, so I would not recommend it for an artist's web site.

I wish someone would design a fast and easy online way to make a gallery of images with your own logo and colors and page design. I can build it in Dreamweaver, I built my own on my main site, but it's very tedious to maintain, and there's no way to make one for someone else that they could update easily themselves.

If anyone knows of one, let me know!

[Ilaria]

Sadie, I just read this post and wanted to thank you for organizing these instructions so well.
I definitely will make changes to my website accordingly, especially regarding the navigation bar, including my name more often and making my location clearer.
As I learned by myself through trial and error I think that Iweb is a very easy option to make and mantain a website.
Ilaria