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.

The semester has started and many of you are busily working away, spending the days in classes and the nights in libraries, quietly munching on your pita chips and humus while reading about how Ancient Greeks actually invented Velcro. Maybe you’re worried that there is more you could be doing to prepare yourself for a career or sweet summer internship. Good news: there is!

Welcome to the age of self-publication and promotion. You don’t need a prestigious professor as your mentor to get published anymore (although having one doesn’t hurt), and there are more than a few things you can do to prepare yourself for life in the real world.

Take advantage of on-campus groups and activities

College campuses are loaded with student run groups and events that are not only fun, but offer the chance to gain valuable leadership and teamwork experience. My most valuable experience at Wesleyan has been managing my a cappella group, The Wesleyan Spirits. Most employers look to see whether you have leadership skills and the ability to work with other people, so don’t be afraid of taking responsibility within your groups.

You know all those flyers and emails you get about interesting lectures and talks? And you know how you always intend to go? And you know how you’ve never actually been to one? Go! Make it a goal to go to at least one talk or lecture this next semester on something that really interests you. These kinds of events won’t be available to you once you graduate, so think of it as free personal and professional development.

Get an on-campus job

There are hundreds of different possibilities for student workers on campus. From library assistants to food workers to technical consultants, students can find work in almost any field as long as they are willing to look. Instead of opting for the easy desk job that lets you do your homework, or a well paying job that a monkey could do, try finding a job that challenges you and provides opportunity for upward mobility. Let’s look at two popular on-campus jobs at Wesleyan University:

While the Weshop Grocer gets paid more hourly, the Events Technician is receiving free training on multimedia software and has the opportunity for upward advancement. Yet surprisingly, the Weshop Grocer is one of the most (if not the most) popular jobs on campus. With your on-campus job, ask yourself: Am I learning something? And if the answer is no, then why are you there?

Volunteer

With the current economic environment, paid jobs are sometimes hard to come by. Volunteering is another great way to get hands-on, out of the classroom experience in a variety of different work environments.

Be creative. Look for volunteering positions that give you responsibility or leadership opportunities. If you’re interested in journalism, contact the local newspaper. If you’re interested in the arts, find a local arts center for kids that you can teach at.

Stay Informed

Instead of spending your time on Youtube and Gossip blogs, (although I do love seeing cats jumping out of boxes and reading about Kanye’s exploits) try to become an expert in something you are interested in pursuing. There are so many tools out there (like Google Reader) that make it easy to manage your news sources and help you be more efficient in your “news consumption”. 

Start a blog

I´ve said this before in my post on Internships and the same is true during your semester. Keeping a non-personal blog is one of the most effective ways of establishing yourself as a dedicated, passionate, and knowledgeable individual. It shows employers or future bosses that, among other things, you have the discipline to self-motivate and self-manage, skills often lacking in recent college graduates. We are the Procrastination Nation.