Designing a website for an artist is difficult. Artists are creative, playful, unique, quirky, strange, and often mildly insane. And they want their websites to be creative, playful, unique, quirky, strange, and often mildly insane.

Which is great!

However, before you go and create your cultural production of an allegorically strata-transcending disembodied experience (that’s how us artists say “website”), take a step back and make sure you have the 6 key elements of a well-designed website.

FrankChimero.com

1. Straight-forward, consistent navigation that tells exactly what the site offers

Frank Chimero is a graphic designer and illustrator. The navigation of his website is clean and simple. A website is not a labyrinth to be discovered. The main navigation should be consistent on every page so that the viewer never gets lost. The goal is for the viewer not to have to press the back button.

JaneArt.com

2. A homepage that says who you are and what you do

The homepage should say right off the bat something about you and your work. On Jane’s homepage, there are examples of her work, a blurb that describes her passion for painting, and a title image that has her full name followed by “paintings”. These are subtle things, but I know immediately that Jane is a painter and I can see what kind of paintings she does.

NatashaWescoat.com

3. A space that promotes participation

Give your viewers a chance to participate in the site. On Natasha’s website, her fans can watch her working in the studio via webcam, and she often takes recommendations from them about what they want to see. When people are involved in a process, they begin to develop a more personal relationship with the artist. If you don’t want them involved in your art, incorporate a blog and give them a space to get involved in that.

4. Clean and functional layout that highlights your art/work

ChristyHydeck.com

First and foremost, your website is about your work. Viewing art online can be just as visually appealing as viewing it in a gallery. Instead of throwing all your content into a Flickr account and calling it a day, take some time to layout how you want your art to be viewed. Christy Hydeck’s online photo galleries are easy to navigate and beautifully designed.

Pamdora.com

5. Reason for viewer to return to the site

If a viewer knows that you add content to your site on a regular basis, they are more likely to return to the site. Pam Rubert over at Pamdora adds new posts every other week, giving her fans a reason to come back and keep up-to-date on what she is doing.

AmandaPalmer.net

6. Easy ways for your audience to connect/contact you

Give your viewers an easy direct line of contact to you. Amanda Palmer uses social media to connect with her viewers. She connects through Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Youtube, and Flickr. If your fans have to make an effort to contact you, more often than not, they won’t.

Social media has opened up a whole new world of possibilities for independent artists looking to promote their events and performances.  An individual artist can significantly increase their audience turnout without using any money by reaching out to the over 250 million active users on Facebook.   These tips will help you start thinking creatively about using Facebook as all the possibilities are still being discovered.

1. Use your fan page

Your fan page is like your base of operations.  This is your home on facebook where fans can learn more about you and your upcoming events.  With Facebook fan pages, you are able to “Target Your Update” to a specific area when sending messages.

For example, say you are going on a 5 city tour in New England.  You could send one message to all the states in New England, a different message to each city you are visiting with more specific information, and a general wall post with comprehensive details for your fans to see.  Make sure to follow the 5 Rules for Artists Using Social Media.

Tip: To increase your # of fans, try having a sign-in/sign-up sheet at each of your events so that you can email attendees thanking them for coming and inviting them to become your fan on Facebook.

2. Create friends lists

Facebook allows you to organize your friends into different categories, giving each of them various “tags” that help you more effectively communicate with the people that matter the most.  These are great for maximizing the support of your personal connections.  Organize your friends into different tiers so that you can send them more direct messages.

Facebook makes it insanely easy to quickly invite your 500 friends to an event.  So easy that we are constantly spammed with invites to events we don’t really care about (sorry, I’m just not that interested in your “Meatloaf and Jenga Party”).

Mass inviting guests can be dangerous because your connections that don’t really care will likely ignore you, and your friends that would gladly support you could be insulted that you sent them the “mass invite” instead of something more personal.  To avoid this, create different categories for your friends (ex. frequent supporters, occasional supporters, professional colleagues, etc.) so that your invites and updates can be marketed directly to them.

3. Hold contests before the event

Umphrey’s Mcgees Lights (TomK. on Flickr)

You want to harness the power of your fans to promote your event.  Word of mouth is viral and will help increase your exposure.  Try offering a weekly prize claimable at your event for fans that do a status update or tweet about your event.  Now your fans become your promotional partners, increasing the likelihood that they will attend and giving you viral publicity for very little cost.

Example: The Umphrey’s McGee held a scavenger hunt at the Rothbury Festival in early July via Twitter, where successful treasure hunters were rewarded with DVDs, keychains, and a hand written note from the band.

4. Collaborate with other artists

Collaborating is a great way not only to meet other artists that share your interests, but also to reach an entirely new audience that might not have known about you.  Try hosting a joint event that both artists promote.  Guest post on each other’s blogs leading up to the event, cross-link to each other’s facebook pages and websites, and feature the other person’s art on your page.

5. Do a daily raffle for free tickets

The week before your event, you want to kick promotion into high gear.  This is the time that people are finalizing their plans and you want to be on their calendars.  Create buzz by having a daily raffle for free tickets (or if it is an unticketed event, give away some other prizes).  This isn’t necessarily to get those ticket winners to come, as discounted tickets decrease attendance, but rather to give a daily reminder about your event and to create an incentive for your fans to tell their friends.

Or try this: Michelle Mangione will be raffling away a free guitar signed by Grace Slick.  To be entered you must sell 10 copies of her recently released CD.  Brilliant.