Getting your Art Portfolio Online |
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Having
an online portfolio of art is now almost essential for artists
worldwide. It was once the territory of the brave and adventurous
to have your art displayed online, but now it is only the foolish
that do NOT have their work online. Many savvy artists are even
bypassing traditional art galleries and making a comfortable living
selling their work online.
Telling your traditional art gallery to go jump isn't recommended
just yet, but having your work online can open many new doors
and get your work seen by a whole new audience that would have
never seen it hanging in a traditional gallery. It can be a complimentary
marketing tool with your gallery if you have one, or it can be
a portfolio to get you noticed if you are just starting out.
There are a variety of ways to getting your work online, costing
varying amounts, depending on how much time you are willing to
put into creating your online portfolio.
Online Art Galleries
One of the easier and cheaper ways of establishing an online presence
for artists is to join one of the many online art galleries. They
vary much in quality, price, and the services that they offer.
They start from free online galleries that provide artists with
very limited options, through to premium services that charge
a recurring fee to display and sell your work online.
Most online galleries require you to have very little or no technical
knowledge and walk you through the steps to getting your work
online. They allow you to add your paintings, biographical details,
artist statement, and contact details. They range in price from
a few dollars per month up to $200USD yearly or more, depending
on the services they offer.
Being a part of someone else's website also means you have much
less control over the presentation of your portfolio though. Some
online art galleries also have a stable of hundreds of artist
portfolios, making it much harder to be found. Another drawback
is that your website address will be something like www.the-online-gallery.com/your-name/index.htm.
Which is much less attractive than having your own website address
like www.yourname.com!
Online galleries are great for getting started or for those that
have no interest in learning to design their own website or to
pay a designer to build one. But having your own website and being
able to present it in your own way looks much more professional.
Your own website address also looks much better on your business
card (You do have a business card, right?!).
Try browsing through the "Online
Art Galleries" category on Linkism or do a search
on the Google search engine for "Online
Art Galleries".
Build Your Own Art Website
Having your own website has far more benefits for the artist,
but it also involves more time and money to get started. More
time if you plan to learn how to design and maintain your own
website, or more money if you plan to pay a professional website
designer to build and maintain your site.
The costs involved in designing and maintaining your own website
are similar and often cheaper than paying for the services of
an online gallery. Your own domain name like www.yourname.com
can be bought for as little as $10 USD per year and the cost of
a website host can be found for less than $10 per month. The biggest
costs will be your time spent learning how to design your site
and update it. There are plenty of website design tutorials available
free online and some of the website design software like "Macromedia
Dreamweaver" or "Microsoft Frontpage" make it much
easier to get a website up and going.
The other option is to pay a professional website designer a fee
to build you a website and to maintain it (as you will have to
update it regularly with new works or news). Along with the fee
for your domain name and for the website hosting listed above,
you will pay the designer from several hundred dollars for a simple
website, through to several thousand for a more complex website.
Their fees vary greatly and the best way to find a good one is
to be recommended one by a friend. Their services, fees, and professionalism
vary greatly.
Conclusion?
If you are a full time artist with a plan to earn your full-time
income from art, you cannot afford not to have your own professionally
designed website with your own website address (domain name).
Your website can be your own art gallery open 24 hours a day with
a possible audience of millions worldwide. If you are already
represented by a commercial art gallery your website can be a
great tool for marketing your exhibitions and showing your work
to collectors worldwide. Or if you are looking for a commercial
art gallery you can let them know you exist by making them aware
of your portfolio online.
Using a free online gallery or paying for a premium service is
also a great way of having your work seen online. But if art is
your living, online art galleries should only be used as marketing
tools to get your art seen in more places online. Most online
art galleries also allow artists to link to their websites from
their gallery profiles, making it attractive to have both a website
and several online gallery profiles.
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Copyright
© Linkism.com
This article was written for Linkism.com http://www.linkism.com
Linkism is a popular art directory with a webmasters section
to help artists and people in the arts industry promote and
market their website online.
Permission to reproduce this article is granted provided it
is reproduced in full, with all website addresses working and
that Linkism.com is clearly acknowledged to be the author with
the Copyright information and website details listed below the
article.
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