New Artist Websites - Hints And Tips

I used a logo 200 x 100 and that seems to work well.

The header should just be a background image and not a header image. This is because the site is now size responsive and your header image may not be

Homepage
Apply Changes

Background
Headshot
Title
Subtitle
Sidebar Text
Tab Menu

Use Tab Menu to select either Images default or Galleries default, as well as Behind the Scenes, Default choice.............

There aren't definitive image sizes because it entirely depends on the size of the screen the visitor is on.

For backgrounds like, say, the header, you have a choice of a tile pattern of some description, a color, or setting your image to "cover" whatever size background there is. Warning, though, on cover, I've seen some awful examples when I look at them on my large monitor. People who wouldn't print a 20x30 from a 900px image are creating the same pixelated appearance by allowing a small background to cover a large section of screen. It probably looked good on the device they were using when they set it up but it may look awful for another visitor.

Realizing that the screen won't look the same for their visitors is what I see a lot of people struggling with. If at all possible, look at your results on as many screens, big and small, as possible.

Mark
http://tisdaleart.com

PS. And, hmmm, the comment I was responding to is gone, now, but I hope/think the "tip" is still worth leaving... be sure to look at your results on more than just your one device.

A few suggestions:

First, don't forget to edit the custom messages. There are a lot of sites that currently have in the header "This is custom message #2".

Second, the custom message boxes will allow some html code, including image tags. So if you don't like the fonts or the sizes (which I couldn't get to change), make a png file, get it uploaded somewhere so that it has a URL, and put that in the message box. Example from mine with "Surround Yourself..." at my AW site here

These new sites have much greater potential for SEO. Get the important stuff in the first 150 characters of your bio. That info is in the description metavariable of the code that search engines record. Also, I would use the AW pages exclusively now for pinterest, twitter, etc. Search engines (at least at present) are not being told to attribute the AW content to the FAA domain.

@Greg, does the SEO meta data need to be in that side bar? I decided to make mine overall fairly clean and uncluttered, so I just put the longer "bio" stuff with meta text on the "about" page only. Figured it didn't matter to search engine indexing if it was in the sidebar "about" page. But, I'm not sure about that.

http://skip-hunt.artistwebsites.com

@Skip - here's the description metavariable text from your site {content="'I make images... so that all my moments will not be lost in time like tears in rain.' ~ Skip Hunt

Skip Hunt, born on the wind-swept plains of Oklahoma, is a professional photographer in Austin, Texas. He picked up a 35mm camera in the mid-1970's an..."}.

I'm not sure exactly where that was pulled from. I didn't see that in your 'About' section or on the main page.

The pictures on AW aren't the same size or quality as on the FAA site. They are more compresssed looking. If they made them look the same as on the FAA site I would be happy.

@Mark - I just checked the code for the main image on one of my pages, and the image file being used is the FAA version exactly. I'm not sure about the small versions. But the 900 px images are the same as on FAA.

I may be one of the 10% that didn't get the message but:

If we get our own domain name for the AWS, do we lose all the previous links... such as Pinterest?

Greg - I posted this in Sean's main thread last night, but right now the Meta descriptions for the home page on our Artist websites are not being pulled from the Artist Website - you'll find the text that you referenced on Skip's bio here on FAA. The AW is still using the FAA bio for its meta text.

@Mark - Ahhh. Interesting. Thanks for pointing that out. We'll see if that changes or not.

@Chuck - I don't think your links will be lost unless you change titles. The pages still exist on the AW domain. Perhaps someone else can confirm.

@chuck - i experimented with it, typing names in long hand for those that switched, and it seems they go to this site. so i think its ok.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

I don't know Greg, but whenever I compare the two side by side, the AW version is smaller not the same quality as the FAA version. Either its compression artifacts or they add more sharpening to the AW site.

Please can we keep this for hints and tips only and use the others for the other stuff. Im trying to keep questions out of here so that we get a list of tips

Also complaints, bugs or suggestions do not fit in this thread. Thanks

Many websites are showing the Gallery cover images in less-than-optimum resolution (for lack of a better explanation on my part). Mine looked awful with the change. Abbie instructed ... If your images do not look right, click on the Edit button in the upper right of the particular gallery ... RE-DESIGNATE that image as the Gallery logo and Submit. That should reload the image looking proper. (Abbie, have I made sense with that???) By doing that with each Gallery logo, my images looked the way they should, not blurry and pixilated.

Mark if you're talking about your pic logos for each gallery for the gallery page - Sean said you have to re submit the pics to be used as the logo for each gallery and they should be clearer -

Any idea how to get rid of the text in the header? For example, mine says 'Jason Politte' when I just want to use an image file instead. I've tried the Logo tab, but it won't let me do anything. Tells me that I need a value. Thanks!

Ah, it's an Internet Explorer thing. Got it with Google Chrome now.

No, not the logo, the actual picture page, for each individual picture.

Mark - when someone uploads a new image, the code used for all the sites generates all sorts of reference information. One of those generated items is the 'mainimage' ID. On a recently uploaded image on the FAA domain, that line is about line # 3859. For the AW domain, that reference is at line #3031. The mainimage ID for both domains is currently the exact same, meaning the AW page is displaying the same image as on the FAA domain. If they look different, something else has to be going on, because both pages are utilizing the same URL to display the image. BTW, you can copy those URLs from the code and use them to share your images elsewhere such as blogs and on websites. They are significantly compressed, but usually done fairly well.

Just a suggestion or food for thought, a lot of folks are putting white print onto black backgrounds.
This is much harder to read.

I increased the print size on the bio. I thought of my 70 plus year old mother with vision problems
in the process. I would have done this anyway. People with wallets see less well generally speaking.

If you increase the bio type set size, I then set the About type a little smaller than the bio print. This gives
a different feel to your story if you have not yet drawn up a new About page.

I went for a very uncluttered look. I had a domain name parked for the last 10 months. I have a redirect of it now.

bridburg.com The link is not embedding.

I ABSOLUTELY DID NOT make an artistic statement with my AW that suited me. I made a statement
with the AW that competed with other websites. Not necessarily other artists' websites, but sites such
as Google v Yahoo. The reason Google out does Yahoo is simplicity. Simplicity loads faster and looks
easier to navigate. Simplicity invites people in. Simplicity is useful to more people. Simplicity can look
intelligent before the foot is put in mouth, if ever.

So I do have an artistic statement in my AW, but it is not a simple this color will work with this header. I am
not an interior designer. Most of my AW is black on white and very legible.

Dave

http://bridburg.com/

Great suggestion on increasing the type for readability, David.

TIP: If you are trying to edit your bio and it's not "taking," remember to do the edit in "Sidebar Text," and not in the "About" tab. Whew! Took me two days to figure that one out, lol.

Patricia,

Thanks.

Also for the footer decrease the font size. Not a lot, but enough to make it different.
Simplify the footer as well. Who wants clutter on the fine print?

Add padding to the header. If you make your bio font larger, increase your padding for the
header to give a balanced feel throughout the page. Lower your padding below to move
the search box down the header. Add plenty of padding to the top to increase the size of
your header. This adds a warmth to the header. It will no longer be a snippet. SNIP in other words.

Dave

David, I will try that. I haven't made it to the footer yet or even know what padding is. But I'm getting there one small step at a time. Thank you!

TIP: I tried to add a tip I discovered about the copyright symbol, but it kept changing to the actual symbol, so it's almost impossible to state how to type it to create the symbol !! So, here is the long version:

Omitting the quotes, type "&" directly followed by the word "copy" -- that's it.

Understand some basic color codes

Transparent.....put that in a color choice as code and you get nothing...that is good very often.
I used this frequently.

#FFFFFF is white

#000000 is black

My choice of reds is #B20000

Write down or memorize your primary color choices. You will need them over and over again.

Color either the word CART or fill in your Cart black if you have a white cart. Make it closer to
cute or cool, whatever your take on that is. It is the POS, point of sale, you control image wise.

Make themes of black on white or whatever you are doing, but be extremely consistent. So the first
question in your mind should be...."is that how I want it to be throughout the whole thing?" If you hem and haw
the answer is no. Your prerogative is to alter your plans completely.

My favorite arts professor used to say that people who choose the color white when they have to make
a color decision are afraid to choose a color. This applies well to abstract art. This applies well to figurative oil paintings.
But does it apply at all to website design? I feel very confident I can choose colors. I feel more confident I
dont want to screw up what should be the simple uncluttered appearance of my website.

My 70 plus year old mother was a real estate agent. When it came time to sell her own home she painted
everything white. She did this so as not to offend or put off anyone and to make a clean polished presentation of her
home. Some real estate agents will tell you a simple layer of white paint is the cheapest thing you can do to add value
to your property when you want to sell your home.

Dave

Patricia,

You made my day. Many thanks.

Dave

Thanks, and I appreciate the color codes, too! My AW is definitely a work in progress, and the more I tinker with it, the worse it gets, lol. I'm going to have to sleep on this. Your mother is so right about white. Just throw in some red paintings and pillows, and you've sold a house!

Due to the limited font choices, I will need to create a new logo. If anyone knows the pixel dimensions for that, it would be appreciated.

bridburg.com

Folks if you look at my last bottom image, I only have a handful of images up,
I have taken down the x px and the y px and the spread to 1, 1, and 1 respectively.

Prior to this the line running up the right hand side of that last image caught the viewer's eyes,
and ran their eye down the page faster as a distraction.

This last thing is important. When you read a page or an image you read it extremely fast
from the upper left hand corner to the lower right hand corner. If you have nothing to
bring your eyes back to center your eyes will run over a page and see nothing at all. This
is especially true for images. Text has pointy tops slowing down this process.

Now the six square central images capture the viewer's attention instead of a stray line
along side the coming soon image at the bottom.

Dave

after many attempts to make an embedded link it fails again....


http://bridburg.com/

(I posted this in the other thread, didnt realise we had another one for hints and tips, so here it is also...)


A tip for people, if you feel your Gallery thumbnails are a bit 'blurry', Sean posted this in the main thread, and I was just lucky to see it.

Thats the ones on the Gallery page, the default image for each gallery, not each of the individual images within the gallery.

So for me: http://firefluxstudios.artistwebsites.com/index.html?tab=galleries

The old size for them was 120x120, but Sean increased that to 360x360, but for some reason he hasn't resized them for everyone, you have to do that manually (bit strange...). The display size is 170x170, so the 120 old size gets pixel-ated a bit if you dont do this.

If you do this, then it should make it look a bit better:

1) Go to your Gallery page/tab.
2) Hover over each image and click the small 'edit pencil' box that shows up
3) In the popup, click the 'edit' button.
4) Click the 'Use As Logo' button next to the image you want to use (even if you use the same image, click that images button)
5) Click the 'Submit' button at the top right.

Do this for each Gallery.

This helped with the clarity/quality of all my thumbnails quite a bit.

HTHs.

Rob.

If you want your Gallery logos to be ovals instead of squares change the Gallery Radius parameter to a crazy high number like 150.

Any idea how I change it so when the Homepage loads, it's loading my galleries and not images?

Roseann, go to Home Page, Tab Menu, Default Tab

Thank you, Chuck.

Roseann, use Tab Menu and you will see Default Tab.

edit - too late!

Just a little tip for you...If you want to force a line to break at a certain point, for instance in your header, put in this code (without the spaces): < br >

Edited: I just realized that forcing a break probably isn't a good idea. I forgot that the window will be responsive to the size of device the viewer is using.

But this led me to another discovery...when you shrink your window, the text in your header under Custom #1 will disappear. So I'd put any really important text under Custom #2.

Goodness, I don't have a clue what any of you are talking about. (smile)

Peggy, the breaks work fine with the resizing.

Thanks, Chuck!

Both custom messages will eventually disappear if you shrink the browser window enough. Message 1 goes first. Message 2 goes second. When you approach the narrow width of a phone, the search box becomes just a magnifying glass that will expand when clicked.

You can get some idea what happens when the screen gets smaller just by narrowing the window as Peggy did. But don't neglect trying to see it on some larger high res monitors as well.

This question is for Abbie. In your "about" section you have social buttons that link to your fb, Twitter, YouTube ect. I have fb, Twitter and Instagram on my FAA BIO but they won't work on the new aw site. How did you get your's to work?

Mine are purely images and links. Not the buttons that use script.

For anyone who does not know how to code images for linking you can use my cheat sheet http://1stangel.co.uk/make-html-links/

PS someone read my about? Yay! Wendy did that top bit for me :)

Thank you Abbie, we'll try that tonight :-) BTW I like your "about" page. What I'm going to do, since the "sidebar" and "about" are separate is use the sidebar for my BIO and the about for my artist statement. For now anyway, I may switch it later. Having both on the aw site is perfect for me.

Dave & Patricia,

Re the Copyright symbol.... I've tried a few different ways, lastly how you said with ©, it worked for an instant, but now looks like this. © How in the heck do I get rid of that  ?

Thanks in advance for your help! = )

oddly mine doesn't do that, but i had that put in on the FAA side of it. seems the device that prevents code is also preventing that alt symbol.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

Jenner, that happened to me, too! My copyright symbol showed up correctly, and I even double-checked. But then the next day, it went back to throwing the A in front of it. SO ... I just went ahead and did it again. This time it is sticking, at least so far. For those who are wondering, here's what you do: type the & symbol directly followed by the word copy (no space), and it will create the copyright symbol.

I think a few times I had forgotten to click on "Apply."

tag

@Mike Savad and other StatCounter users
I figured out a workaround to add StatCounter code to the bio pages of our new AW sites. I'm using a custom domain and it worked.
Here's how I did it:
- log into StatCounter and click on Config, then Default Guide.
- select & copy the Basic code (not the Standard code)
- copy the Basic code into your word processing program (open office, word etc.) and remove all hard returns - you can see them by clicking the paragraph-P
- make the StatCounter code "invisible" by using html to change the font color of the StatCounter code to match your site's background. My background color is white, so I added this tag just before my StatCounter code:
font color="#FFFFFF"
and this tag at the end of my StatCounter code:
font color
(I've left out the < >s because FAA won't let me post html code. Sorry.)
- paste the edited code to the end of your AW bio and sidebar text.

http://www.computerhope.com/htmcolor.htm

The most comprehensive Color references......bookmark this!

Hi folks,

Looking for advice and help again. I have read through all the notes here and don't have a clue on most but saving all of it until I get to version 2. Which I tried last night. Thing is I feel like a fool! I was reminded and kept on my mind to taking the slide show off because I knew something really bad would happen. Guess what? I was concentrating so hard on the instructions to go over to version 2, I did not take the slide show off first. Yes, I went back and did it but a s all of you know....I can't get in anymore....so, will you be kind enough to tell me what to do now? AGH!
Thanks in advance! I am grateful for all of you know that know your way around!
Roberta

Hi Roberta - if you can't log in at all anymore, you may have to contact Abbie in Tech Support and ask her to remove the slideshow.

http://fineartamerica.com/contactus.html?tab=contactus

Good luck.

Thanks, I will try it!

ARTIST WEBSITE....
HOW can I add space between the images on the main page?

It's not good to have a 'quilt' of images.....

looks pretty bad...........

I'm pretty sure no gallery or museum would hang art like that.


There should be at least one inch of white space between
the images.....to visually separate them....

any suggestions?

Sara, seems to be the new gimmick on many sites that display images. I think it's awful but I've never been one to jump on the trendy bandwagon unless there is merit to the design. If you check out Panoramio and Flickr, you'll see the same quilty layout. They are but a couple examples of this "new and improved" layout showing up everywhere. The only thing we can do is create our own web sites to link to instead of AW.