Advice on Creating a Website for an Artist
I have finally gotten all my artwork photographed, and would love to display it on a website. I just don't know where to begin. Any suggestions for a simple, easy to manage website hosting service, free or inexpensive, would be most gratefully appreciated.
Jul 17, 2020
Parent Replies
As someone who has built a lot of websites for musicians, writers and artists, I highly recommend Wordpress. It's open-source, so you can host it anywhere (unlike Squarespace or Wix), and there are a lot of free or low-cost add-ons and support options available. At its most basic, editing a Wordpress site is like composing an email, although you can get a lot fancier than that if you want to.
The cheapest (free) option is to host through Wordpress.com (your domain would be something like myart.wordpress.com), but if you can spare about $120/year, hosting it at someplace like Dreamhost (there are lots of options, but that's my personal favorite after long experience there and elsewhere) will get you your own domain name, email accounts, the ability to use plug-ins (which provide extra functionality in Wordpress, like calendars, forms, etc.), no ads, etc. without having to pay a la carte for those features at Wordpress.com. Basically, it will make your life easier and your site more professional. Also, they have something called the "One-Click Wordpress Install" which is literally as easy as it sounds.
There are a lot of nice Wordpress themes (including free ones) specifically geared towards displaying a portfolio. If you Google "wordpress themes portfolio" you'll see lots of examples; this site has a few examples and also walks you through the steps of setting up Wordpress and choosing a theme: https://www.wpbeginner.com/showcase/best-wordpress-portfolio-themes/
I don't think I'm allowed to promote my own services here, but there are lots of good Wordpress people out there if you find you need a hand ironing out the details - it is totally something you can DIY, too, though - in my experience, anything I couldn't figure out on my own had an answer somewhere online already. Good luck and congrats on being ready to put your work out there - I'm an artist myself so I know that's a big step!
I'm an architect and my daughter built my website and did a great job using Squarespace. It is user friendly and has a good choice of templates .
I love squarespace and their templates and the ease of use.
It's not cheap though. That professional look takes some $$ (domain fee and hosting fee)
The cheapest way would be social media in my opinion. Create FB Fan Page or Dedicated IG account (using a creator profile or even Business profile)
squarespace is great!
Try Squarespace. good luck!