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How to turn your artist website into an exhibition

In the age of “AI art,” people are searching for creators with intention. They want something that goes beyond an image in a frame; they want art in context. Your own artist website is the perfect way to deliver that. But creating an online art portfolio that highlights your personality is no easy task, even for highly creative people.

As an artist, you already know you need a website. It’s vital to helping you secure commissions as well as admission to institutions, retreats, and other opportunities. But if you want to make a name for yourself, creating a standard online art portfolio is not enough. You need a platform that will showcase not just your work, but who you are as a creator.

In this post, we’ll explain how to structure your artist website for a successful user experience. We’ll also go over how to infuse every part of its design with your personality (or persona).

The Structure of Your Online Art Portfolio

Let’s start with the framework. Every website with multiple pages should have a home page and a contact page. But what should you put in between them? Here are the pages we recommend you build, in order of importance.

An art gallery

This is the most essential part, so let’s start here. Your online art portfolio should, clearly, be a place to showcase your artistic style, range, and accomplishments.

While your artwork is a deeply personal representation of you, it’s also the product you’re trying to sell. This is not the time to be humble. When structuring your portfolio, be sure to:

• Categorize, then sub-categorize
• Create a page for each piece
• Clearly mark which items are for sale (specify original or print)

You aren’t using the portfolio section of your artist website as a shop, but you should still give each piece it’s own page where you can extol your vision, creativity, and technical skill.

A note on protecting your work: The question of how much artwork you should share for free has gotten more complicated in the last few years. AI scraping is a real concern for artists, so we recommend using a tool like Glaze to protect your creative work.

An art store

This should be separate from your art gallery. You want prospective employers, residency admissions directors, and academic admissions counselors to see a professional, online art portfolio, not a shop. And while we reiterate that you should specify which pieces are for sale and provide a link, it shouldn’t be a products page.

However, you ought to have a products page for people who are solely interested in what they can buy. Browsing through piece after piece that’s no longer available, or is available only as a print or original, is going to frustrate buyers quickly. The solution? A separate shop page.

Building an online store for your artist website may feel daunting, but affordable, easy-to-use options abound. We personally recommend WooCommerce, if you know your way around WordPress. You can also use services like Shopfiy, Wix, or Squarespace. Alternatively, you could start an Etsy store and embed it on your website using WordPress.

Discussing the various methods of dropshipping prints is beyond the scope of this particular blog, but it is something we’ll go over in the future. Sign up for our mailing list to learn about our experiences and recommendations.

An “About the Artist” page

Your online art portfolio should be about you, the artist, not just your art. An “about” page is the bare minimum you need to present yourself as an individual. Without this, your website is representing a collection of artwork, a company. Not a person.
We’ll talk more about how to write a good “About the Artist” page in the future, so subscribe to our socials to be notified.

• Facebook
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Dribbble
• DeviantArt
• Pinterest

An artist’s blog

While many people advise building a blog for SEO purposes, blogging has other benefits. Sharing a portion of your life—even if it’s just a slice of your professional life—will allow your audience to connect with you. This is where you can wax poetic about your inspiration and your process. We’ve placed this last on the list, but it’s far from unimportant. When it comes to helping your audience see you as a real person creating art from your lived experience, a blog is the simplest method.

The Design of Your Online Art Portfolio

Don’t think of your site as a museum; a bunch of white-walled rooms displaying separate pieces of art. Your artist website should be a work of art in itself. It needs to convey your style, of course, but also your inspiration. That could mean the source location for a landscape, the short story that got you thinking about a subject, or the artist whose work got you interested in your field. The website design itself should reflect your chosen medium, as well.

The following are artist websites that exemplify the type of design we’re talking about.

Artist Website: Lucy Knisley

Lucy Knisely is a comic artist. As such, the typeface used on her artist website looks blocky and handwritten. This instantly lets the viewer know what type of artwork she creates. The header image also expresses the slice-of-life tone that most of her work conveys. Without even scrolling, we have a good sense of the artist and the artwork.

The site’s navigation is also clear, showing straightforward categories and using drop-down menus to keep the information organized.

Artist Website: Teagan White

Teagan White draws precise, graceful illustrations of nature. Her works typically feature a subject against a stark background. So her online art portfolio design reflects this. The home page is bold, showing only Teagan’s artwork. The navigation menu is visible, but subtle. All the focus is on the art.

The rest of the site maximizes whitespace (something we don’t recommend by default, but which works well in this case) by limiting image size. While the text is smaller than recommended for general accessibility, the light gray color and italicized font create a gentle, graceful feel.

Both of these examples are quite different in style, but you can see the commonalities. Each one features:

• Clear, easy-to-access navigation
• A focus on the artist’s style
• An about page, an art gallery, a shop, and a blog

If you find yourself stuck for inspiration, I recommend studying these two sites. Notice the ways that they go beyond a basic online art portfolio and become centralized platforms for the artists.

Make your online art portfolio an experience

In a webscape filled with generic page templates and boilerplate web copy, let your artist website stand out. Show your admissions counselor, potential employer, or residency panel that you have a clear vision and a defined artistic style. And show them that from the moment your page loads.

An art teacher once told us that a piece is done when there’s nothing more you can take away from it. But rather than encourage minimalism, she said, “Let loose when you’re in the creative process. Tone it down afterward.” This is especially applicable with web design. We’re surrounded by bland, copy-and-paste web design. Err on the side of “too much” rather than “too boring.”

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If you like our work, set up a consultation! We’ll be glad to design the perfect online art portfolio for you.

This blog was written by a human for We Are Seven without any use of generative AI. For permissions or questions, please contact us.
Feature Image by Sunriseforever

Keeping followers engaged beyond social media

Your Instagram is probably amazing. But your art site should be the hub that your fans keep returning to. While social media is vital in today’s world, depending on it for engagement is risky. You’re at the mercy of each platform’s creators (or, more likely, bots that can ban without providing cause, warning, or recourse). Algorithms change overnight, potentially cutting off your revenue before you know what’s happening. In this environment, you need a direct line of communication with your fans, completely independent of social media.

But how can an individual or small business compete with the likes of Meta and TikTok? Believe it or not, it’s not too difficult.

This post contains affiliate links. Please see our affiliate links disclosure to learn more.

Social media is not your enemy

When discussing competition in marketing, one of the most important questions to consider is “Who are our competitors?” For example, Trader Joe’s and Wal-Mart are not direct competitors, even though they’re both grocery chains. That’s because, in spite of offering similar products, they’re marketing to completely different clientèle. Trader Joe’s focuses their advertising on middle to upper class consumers, while Wal-Mart directs their ads to shoppers from the lower and lower-middle class. Likewise, even though both Sushi Kashiba and RockCreek Seafood & Spirits price their meals similarly, they offer vastly different dining experiences. That means they tailor their marketing to appeal to different tastes.

The point we’re getting at is that the best way to ‘compete’ with major social media platforms is to not compete at all.

Your art site should be in an entirely different category than Instagram, TikTok, X, Facebook, or any of the others. When it comes to user experience (UX), it’s in a league of its own.

Creating a UX that art aficionados will love

Most social media platforms offer a streamlined experience to their users. Algorithms tailor their home feeds so that users find more or less what they expect. The experience is low-energy and fleeting. It’s like stopping at a convenience store for a quick hot dog.

Your personal art site, on the other hand, should be more like a fine dining experience. You’ll want to give users…

An interactive experience

Give your fans a way to interact with you, your artwork, or other fans. This can be something as simple as having a blog that allows comments, or something as sophisticated as clickable, animated artwork. Simon Freund offers an interactive art site with works like mit oder ohne.

Several different things to do

You don’t want your art site to be only a portfolio or shop. Ideally, your website should include your artwork, products for sale, a guide to your creative process, information about upcoming events, and a way for fans to get to know you personally. When your fans know they can expect updates on any of the above, they’ll return.

Something new each month

This doesn’t have to be a new piece of art. It could be a blog, product drop, or site update. Your fans likely won’t have time to stop back every day, or even every week. But they’ll be glad to see a notification or email from you about once a month. And you’ll benefit from keeping your art on their radar.

Even if your artwork isn’t interactive, the internet is. By designing your website with your fans in mind, you can create an artistic oasis in the midst of a chaotic social media landscape.

Remember to infuse your art site with your own creativity

Above all, your fans want to see your own unique style. The moment someone visits Teagan White’s website, they know exactly what type of art she creates, even before clicking over to her portfolio. That’s the kind of immersive design your followers will love. If you want to stand out, work with a custom website designer to bring your art to the screen.

Is that really enough to keep an audience engaged?

The reason social media requires such high output is twofold:

1. the algorithm rewards it by prioritizing creators who post multiple times per day
2. most of your audience will miss most of your posts, so you have to throw as much at them as possible

Those issues don’t apply with your own website. Yes, you’ll need to consider SEO to reach people in the first place, but these features are what will keep them coming back.

Remember, you’re not competing for your fans’ attention every day. Your audience doesn’t have that much energy to devote to your work, and frankly you can’t put out that volume of work. Think of this more as an adult friendship; you like each other enough to check in and offer support, but you don’t have time to spend every lunch break together.

Who are you going to happier to hear from—the spammer blowing up your phone with skits, ads, and overblown gossip three times a day, seven days a week, or your artsy friend who sends you a thoughtful email update once a month?

If you’re looking for a custom website designer to help you bring your ideas to life, contact We Are Seven today. You can also subscribe to our newsletter for more advice just like this.

This blog was written by a human for We Are Seven. For permissions or questions, please contact us.