Website basics?

Aisleen

@LauraA I know your struggle! I have hosted my website over IONOS, it's a German company, for a few years now. 29,90 € a month. I know, it's a lot, but they have a great customer service. I have my own consultant, that I can call whenever I have problems with my website. Right now I am redesigning my website and building a Webshop and that guy has been my savior .

When it comes to logos for artist, I would go for something simple. Maybe just your name in a nice font, you feel represents your art and art style.

If you want to check out my website and logo for reference it's www.aisleen.de

On the topic of your URL I like lauraarlandart.com, but laura-arland.com or laura-arland-art.com are more legible. So I would go with one of the latter. I went with just my first name, because as far as I know I am the only one in Germany with this name and my full name would have been too long.

LauraA

Thanks to all of your for your continued contributions! I hope we can create a little resource list here for someone!

@TessaW Your website has that clean simple look that an artist's website needs (to show off your lovely color!), and I see that you were able to get a logo in there too! I didn't realize that your website was an Adobe one! My only thought would be, if I ever changed it, would people then be confused? Something to think about...

@jdubz Yes, I knew the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org because I have had a free WordPress.com site for years. But it's always a good clarification to make, because it's truly a bit confusing!

@lora_chaudavis I like what Christian Robinson and Aaron Becker have done by creating their own "imaginary universe names." I follow them both on Instagram, so I knew about the names, but it had been a long time since I had been to their sites. Christian Robinson's is exactly the kind of site I would like to have when (and if--not a given!) my work grows up!

@Aisleen Your site is lovely too! I live in Europe, so I have some experience with German tech support and agree that it's quite good. I'll probably go with a cheaper option, but I'll have a look at IONOS as well. I'm assuming you can use .com there? I know that some people in Italy have .com. I didn't want to use .it because I wanted a truly international extension. I learned the lesson of not identifying with one place when I set up my other email and social accounts.

And, you guys with unusual names are lucky! There are various well-known people with names similar to mine, so I guess I'll just have to work that much harder make my artwork memorable! Not that I hope to ever be on the level a Laurie Anderson or a Laurie Halse Anderson, but just to give you an idea of the possibilities for confusion...My favorite all-time disambiguation, however, is Yuko Shimizu's disclaimer on her website that she did not create Hello Kitty. Imagine being as talented and famous, and as Yuko Shimizu and still having to fight for your own identity!

TessaW

@LauraA said in Website basics?:

@TessaW Your website has that clean simple look that an artist's website needs (to show off your lovely color!), and I see that you were able to get a logo in there too! I didn't realize that your website was an Adobe one! My only thought would be, if I ever changed it, would people then be confused? Something to think about...

If I ever changed it from Adobe, I'm assuming I'll just be able to change the domain over to the new host, so I don't think people would be confused? My site would still be www.tessawrathall.com. Like if you change cell phones or cell service provider, but keep your phone number, people can still contact you. Maybe it would mess with google searches and SEO for a while? Not sure! Are there issues here that I'm not foreseeing?

On the topic of unique names, I kept my obscure maiden name partially for this reason. Otherwise I'd be Tessa Johnson or Theresa Johnson- both of whose domain names are already for artist's websites! Lol.

LauraA

@TessaW Ah, thanks for clearing that up. Makes perfect sense! (And yes, I know another Theresa Johnson! )