Artist's Web Site Design

[SusanV]

Hi all,

Until now my website has really just been a couple of pages and mainly a
photoshop gallery page. It's time for me to do better than that. I want a
really clean and elegant, simple gallery style site to showcase and sell both
my paintings and my photogravures.

I have a really old version of Adobe GoLive, but I'm thinking about just biting the
bullet and getting Dreamweaver and doing the site myself (i did minor in
graphic design so I don't think I'd be shooting myself in the foot :o ). I figure
if I build it myself I'd know it better and be able to keep it current myself.


So... I thought you all would be a great resource to ask about some things, like:

1. Is there a better (than Dreamweaver), html editor for a simple gallery design?
(i think Dw might be overkill for what i want to do, and it's so expensive)

2. Do you have any advice for me about design of such a site... likes and
dislikes, or tricks of the trade, etc...

3. Do you have any favorite artist's sites (design-wise) to share?

thanks in advance for any and all help and advice!
Susan

[bob carnie]

Susan
I cannot help you with the technical issues of web site designs.

I will say that from looking at photography sites over the years I prefer , very simple, easy to read , and navigate, as well sites that do not force you to find what you are looking for , as well easy to know at a glance that there is no more info to be found so move on.
Simple contact information with phone , address, and email functions.

[Joe Lipka]

Why not?

(1.) I use Dreamweaver (down level several releases) to design my web site the navigation buttons I downloaded from a free site, read the documentation and modified to meet my site needs. To get around the expense of Dreamweaver enroll in a web design course that teaches Dreamweaver at your local tech or community college. At that point you will become a "student" and will become eligible for the "education version" of the software. The price drops dramatically. (This "student" ploy works for Photoshop, too)

(2.) Spend a lot of time figuring out the function of your web site. What do you want your web site to do for you? How to you want people to navigate your web site. You have to lead people to various places on your web site, so you need to think about how to organize your photographs and how people will move around your web site. People spend way too much time with fancy frou-frou and don't spend enough time of figuring out what they want their web site to do. Plan and map your web site functions way before you even have thought of web design.

(3.) My web site is used basically to show what work I have done. I have organized it by projects. It is simple (almost spartan) and there is no flash. I want to show the users various samples of my work. I want the user to be able to get to the photographs with as few clicks as possible. I do use a lot of Acrobat files because that way you can actually see some quality images and more importantly, you can download and keep the free PDF files to look at whenever you want. Naturally, I would suggest you visit my website. If you have any questions, PM me.

[SusanV]

Bob, thanks for the response. I too hate sites that force you to look for
stuff. It's surprising really, how many sites are not really easy to get around.


Joe, thanks ... all good points. You have me smacking myself in the forehead
here though, because we have an educator in the house, and I can buy
Adobe educational version software with his credentials. At some point in the
past I realized that, but that little bit of gray-matter got written-over I
guess (probably with something dumb, like a shopping list). Now that you've
kindly reminded me of that, the cost of Dreamweaver just got a lot better .


I took a look at your site, and realize that I have it bookmarked already, and
really like the design. Very clean and easy to navigate. I hate frou frou and
cumbersome graphics that take up the viewer's time with something other
than looking at my work. I especially like the way you have yours organized
into projects. The Acrobat files are a terrific idea, too. I'd never thought of
that, but it sure would make it easy for a prospective purchaser to have a
"hard copy" to peruse.

thanks again,
Susan

[Walt Calahan]

I designed my site with Apple's iWeb.

Very easy to use. Everyone lies and says my web site looks great and is easy to navigate. What do they know.

http://www.walterpcalahan.com

[tom_micklin]

1. Is there a better (than Dreamweaver), html editor for a simple gallery design?

Susan,
I design web sites for a living and use Dreamweaver almost exclusively. I use the Code View and just write out the code, but using the design view makes it pretty easy. There really isn't a better, easier to use tool that I've found.
I think you're on the right track with a site that is easy to navigate and doesn't contain a lot of fluff that just slows down the experience.
Good Luck,
Tom

[amphoto]

Hey Susan,

I played about with goLive a few years ago and thought it was the proberbial bees-knees for web design until I tried dreamweaver. It really is worth the price - everything is so well thought out and structured. No wonder Adobe bought it! If you can get it with an educational discount I'd definitely go for it. Things to avoid? For me they're frames, tables and flash. Frames were never a good idea, tables have been superceded by CSS and flash just takes too long to download most of the time. What to include? Definitely Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Once you get the hang of them it's dead easy to change pretty much the entire look of your site just by changing a few lines of text. It also makes your web pages pretty lean which means they load quicker, and you can position everything much more easily than by using nested tables. In addition, they're also a big help for people with a visual impairment, since they can have greater control over how your site is displayed within their browsers. For displaying images there are lots of nice little bits of freely available javascript out there which can enhance the viewer experience without much of a bandwidth overhead. My favourite is lightbox (http://www.huddletogether.com/projects/lightbox/) or one of its variants, but I notice that people are producing similar effects using pure CSS, which is pretty neat.

Angus

www.angusmackintosh.com

[Keith Taylor]

I have a really old version of Adobe GoLive, but I'm thinking about just biting the bullet and getting Dreamweaver and doing the site myself (i did minor in
graphic design so I don't think I'd be shooting myself in the foot :o ). I figure
if I build it myself I'd know it better and be able to keep it current myself.

Hi Susan!

I've used Dreamweaver for maybe 4-5 years now and love it but I haven't seen anything that comes close to matching DW.
If you decide to upgrade your old version of GoLive, you may want to wait until late summer when Adobe plan to release version 9 as a standalone app.


Keith.

[SusanV]

Thanks to each of you who replied! I'll get Dreamweaver with the edu
discount and see what I can come up with. As I work on it I'll come
back here to share experiences or ask questions along the way, so stay
tuned This will be one of my "summer" projects. Hopefully by Fall
I'll have a sleek new website to show off (and SELL) my gravures and paintings.

thanks again!
Susan