My Website

I have had a website for more than a year now but recently I asked for a professional opinion. This opinion was that they couldn't tell who I was as an illustrator. This was quite a big deal for me. It begun me thinking about whether I am an illustrator. I understood in a way that the varied materials that I use might come across as unfocused but this is the way I work.

What I came to realise is that a website isn't really about you as an artist, especially when you're as varied as me. It is more about who is looking at your website. So why do I have a site? Ultimately to get commissions. So i needed to re asses, still have all my work there but section it better. 

Unfortunately I did not take a screen shot of what the website looked like before I started making changed but I am still making some changed to it. 

To start with I looked at Pat Perry's website. I have done a lot of research into sites bu never really found one that I loved except for this one. Rather than the layout of the separate pages, I was drawn to the way he has decided his sections:

Art
-Works
-Walls
-Illustration
-In Churchill
-In Alska
-In The EU
-Photos

Sketchbook

etc.

I like the fact that he has a section under art as well as one under Illustration. I also liked how he put some things into projects such as "In Churchill". I previously thought about doing projects but was advised against. However after seeing this brilliant website I decided to go for it. I also liked the way the images on the project pages scrolled to the side and are large. I have tried this out with mine but I have also put (and am still adding) descriptions to the pages to give them some context. This is after having shared what I had with Creative Control and a few peers. 

I also liked how he has just one of his images as his front page. I previously had an array of various pieces that you could flick through, showing a lot of variation. I think choosing one image is a good idea, one that shows recent work, work that you want the viewer to be bought in by. And to bring in the right clients. So i have chosen one image. 

This is the site as it is at the moment. Here you can see the front page and the different categories. I have also added a sketchbook page something I have wanted to do and was encouraged to do by Pat Perry's site. 

I was having a bit of trouble with the pages themselves. I just didn't think they looked that professional. I stepped away from this site for a bit and found a site called Cargo. I started building a website with them and found the pages, the layout and well pretty much everything a lot better than Wix which is the site I use. However I had to stop myself as I am already paying for a domain name on Wix and Cargo is a lot more expensive. 

However, Cargo did give me some good pointers. I especially liked the layout of one of their templates, this had large large images that when clicked on would take you to a page about that image and it's project. I really liked the way way some of the images on these ages where spaced out, with areas of text through out the page. I decided to try and do something similar on my site. 

As my site is currently, you can do this sort of thing on the images under Illustration but I might change the Art work section and the Illustration one over. But for now I am just working though some main images I have chosen and making them into separate pages. 

When hovered over the image fogs over.

Project opens in new page. I will be adding a back arrow to this page so that navigation is easier.

So that's where I am at the moment, you can find my site at: 

www.livyhasnolife.com