How To Design a Web Site for Your Art Yourself

Wouldn’t it be great if you had your own web site? Just think of people from all over the world looking at your art. Imagine the excitement if you received a good review or when you saw your name appear in search engine results. Who knows, somebody may even want to buy one of your paintings…. If only you could afford a web designer. If only you were a computer genius. If only…if only….

Just three months after my wife and I were thinking these very same thoughts, we had a web site up and running on the internet -– and all with little knowledge and little money!

How Much Computer Knowledge Do I Need to Design a Web Site?
Basic web site design is quite easy to learn if you’re comfortable with computers. As your web site develops, so will your knowledge. I’m still learning things now and am forever changing things on the site when I discover a better way to do it. The site had been live only two months when I designed version number two. I decided to change the first version after reading an article called '10 Things to Avoid When Designing a Web Site' and realised I had used eight of them! But so what, the web site was on the internet for anyone who wanted to look at it and, at that time, we both thought it looked fine.

Where Do I Start to Learn Web Site Design?
Forget for the moment about HTML and JavaScript (codes used to create web sites) and all things computer. Your most important initial tools are a pencil, paper, and your imagination. Think about how you would like your site your look. Do you want a gallery page for your art or do you want different galleries for different subjects? Will you include a resume of yourself and your work or an artist’s statement? What about a links page to list your favourite sites or a guest book? Take your time and write down the kind of things you’d like on your web site.

Once you’ve compiled your list, take a good look at each item on it. Do you really need those 10 galleries? Or that chat room? Or that feedback form? Start to trim your list down to the basics -- no more than four or five. These are what you’re going to do for your first design of your web site. The other things can wait till another day.

Okay, now draw a square on a sheet of paper. Congratulations! You have just started designing you web site. Seriously, this simple square will become your home page, the front door to your web site. Your visitors will want to find their way around as easily as possible, so make it simple and clear. Write ‘Home Page Title’ at the top of your square. Now sketch in the elements you want on your home page, for example a particular painting and a brief introduction. Add the navigation buttons to get around your site.

From each button draw a line and connect another square to represent the web page that will be linked to it and as before roughly sketch in the contents and how its going to look. Do this for every page until you’ve got your whole web site mapped out. When you are happy with the way your web site looks on paper, it’s then time to reach for your computer and make it for real.

What Web Design Software Will I Need?
You are going to need some web design software. There are plenty to choose from, some costing a small fortune and some easier to use than others. Most software companies put out trial versions for you to test out before buying; these are fully functioning program that are free to use for a limited time. This is a great way to test if you’re going to get on with a program or not.

The first design for Echostains I created used the 30-day trial version of a programme called Dreamweaver, which was included on the cover disk of a computer magazine. It can also be downloaded for free, but as it is quite a big programme this is going to take a while if you use a dial-up modem to connect to the internet. Providing you have worked out your site on paper first, the 30-day trial should be ample time to get your site made. Dreamweaver can seem confusing at first, but the Help section deals with everything you need to know.

You can even design web sites using Microsoft Word -- you just save your page as HTML and you can view it in your internet browser. But you will be better off with a purpose-built programme using a process known as WYSIWYG (pronounced ‘wizzy-wig’). This stands for ‘What You See Is What You Get’ and does away with need to know any HTML code. You just type as you would normally and the WYSIWYG program converts your words into HTML, the code used by web browsers to display web sites. (Next time you are online, click the right mouse button on a web page and select ‘view source’ -- you will now see the page as it really is a mass of words and symbols that the browser converts into the web page you see.)

Parts of this feature:

• Part 1: Starting to Design and Learning the Computer Software
  
• Part 2: Adding Photographs and Getting Online
  
• Part 3: Getting Visitors and Into Search Engines
  
• Part 4: Web Site Design Tips and Tricks