Website critiques.

Our task to talk about artist website’s and critique them has left me feeling questionable about whether this kind of thing really belongs on my blog. I’m not sure I want to upload critique after critique…because really, if it bores me to read, then it’s gonna bore you guys!

So what I’ve decided to do to please myself but also give my tutors what they need, I’m just uploading a few photo’s of a selection of my critiques. These can be read for assessment in my big clearfile folder.

I’ll give a short list of a couple of my favorite’s I’ve written about in my folder for any interested followers out there! check out their websites, because they are stunning!

TOM ZUST WEBSITE
EMMA BLACK WEBSITE
DER-ROESLER WEBSITE
THE YOK’S WEBSITE

Aware Wolf.

Something I’ve been struggling to come to terms with about my website is that, once I make it go live, the whole world can see my selected works for my e-portfolio. I’ve figured that I’d have to be crazy to put work up that I wasn’t proud of, was a random doodle, or just didn’t have any interesting qualities about it. This isn’t my facebook page, this is my professional website! And it’s gotta have work on it that I feel good about.

I’ve decided throughout this project i’m going to create a small series of drawings  that have my name written all over them. I’ve named the mini-series ‘Aware’ and the drawings circle around the idea of awareness, whether it be spiritual, emotional or social-political. This drawing titled ‘Aware Wolf’ is the first of the works and I’m thinking of even using it as a header for my website…but I’m not sure yet.

‘Aware Wolf’ Toner, A (2014) Ink on paper.

Do’s and Don’ts of building an Artist’s website!

Googling ideas for creating my website, I stumbled across THIS ARTICLE on a large list of the Do’ s and Don’t s for creating an artist or designer website.  I’m going to add some of my favorite points here so I can refer to them when I get into the creating zone! I suggest to all of my class-mates to have a quick scroll through of this, there’s some helpful tips. 🙂

* Be sure your website looks the same on Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Firefox and Safari.

* Link your website to all of your social networking pages (and vice versa) so that visitors can move between them with as little effort as possible.

* Keep texts to a minimum.

* NEVER require visitors to join, register, get passwords, or fill out any forms of any kind in order to see your website

* Avoid plug-ins, special effects, audio, complex visuals, and other gimmicks 

* Don’t show every work of art you’ve ever created.

And there’s a lot more where that came from…

I also found this article on WordPress artist websites, which will be handy to review when I begin. The creator of this article includes a step-by-step video to make the process easier for people who struggle with navigating through WordPress.

Professional Practice. 29/7/2014

Today we had Annika Bennett from A+E Gallery from Napier come speak to the class on Professional Practice. You can visit the A+E Website HERE.

Annika began the lecture by giving us a list of her background and roles in the art industry.
She works as an Art Agent, for fine art and commercial sectors, she’s an Art dealer,
And she’s an art management consultant in which she works in branding and marketing for galleries, designers and artists.

Annika touched on a range of topics in a short time. She covered combining fine art practice alongside commercial practices. She talked about all the things she has to do as an Art Agent. She talked about professionalism. She went through a list of Do’s and Don’t s of approaching galleries and more. There was definitely a large amount of topics covered!

I was pleased that she covered the points of professionalism in the industry.
Her list of professional skills are all equally important for artists that want to appear in galleries, exhibitions or work alongside agents, dealers etc.
* You have to have communication skills.
* Come prepared. be prepared.
* You must meet and manage expectations.
* Scheduling and delivery must be planned and thought out well.
* Artist’s code of ethics!
* Learn about copyright. If you created it, You own it!
* Sales and Accounting have to be considered.
* And lastly, you must be able to work well in a team.

As someone who hasn’t exhibited a lot of work or approached a gallery, some of those factors are ones I would never have thought about. The same applies for the list of Do’s and Don’t s that Annika talked us through of approaching galleries. Many of the points she brought up surprised me, simply because I’d never thought about them before.

Overall, I really enjoyed the lecture and got heaps of notes from it to look back on.

Mini Brief.

‘Cat Girl’. Ink and photoshop.

My brief for this project is to create a functional and well-branded website that shows off my e-portfolio. My website should inform my viewers of my identity and brand as an artist.
I need to include a homepage, portfolio gallery, bio, contact details and links to my social media accounts. I need to consider my website content, what my domain name will be and I need to plan the navigation and functionality of my website through sitemap brainstorms.

Ruben Ireland.

Rubens website: HERE

Ruben Ireland is an Illustrator I have admired for years. I’ve always felt my work has related to his in particular ways, like, we both work primarily in black and white aaand we like to include both animals and people into our work.

Googling his website to see if it’s as flawlessly created as his illustrations are, I was pleased to find his website my favorite out of all the ones I discovered.
It’s minimal, clean and easy to navigate through. His homepage features a basic slideshow of some featured pieces of his portfolio which you click and takes you to his full portfolio.
Down the bottom of his homepage are some click-through links to his social media accounts, which is handy because now I can follow his instagram..Ha!

His website contains all the necessary information without being cramped. He includes a bio link, contact details and shop. The shop section leads you to all the online retail he stores his prints.

Overall this is a website I feel I could closely base mine off of. The simple structure and overall feel of the site is an illustrator’s dream.

Ireland, R. (2014) http://www.rubenireland.co.uk/

The Business of being an Artist and Designer.

 

On Tuesday the 22/7 I had come down with a chest infection and wasn’t well enough to go into school to listen to our surprise guest speaker that we had a lecture with for the day. Unfortunately for me, the guest speaker was Al Mackie, the co-owner from BAND, a design company based in Ahuriri. You can find their website HERE.
Pretty disappointed I missed this one, but I was lucky enough to get some notes and the basics on what Al talked to level 6 about.

From what I gathered from reading notes on the lecture, Al talked heavily on what a company or employer looks for in potential employees. Given a brief list, it’s pretty straight up stuff that you need to consider not only for a career or job opportunity, but these are factors we should apply at IdeaSchool as well.

* You have to be willing to work HARD. This could mean staying in late or that you have to work well consistently. No slacking off here and there.
* Having natural talent is a large factor.
* It’s also good to have a variety in skills.
* Be positive. And have a great attitude.
* Being able to take critique and give critique is important.
* Be a good listener!
* and last but not least show your personality. Be real.

Reading over these bullet points given by Al on what employers look for, I realise I had to apply all these skills last year when I was given a logo design job for a local business.
I was very fortunate to have been given a job to design the new logo for a new logistics company based in Onekawa, that branched off the Fastway Couriers business.
I remember how scared I was to get the job, because
A) I never considered myself a designer
B) I had no idea how to brand myself
And C) What if I screwed it all up and missed out on this fantastic opportunity?

Lucky for me, I had some help from my Dad, who has a lot of experience with doing business and was working on an advertisement for the company at the same time. He accompanied me to my meetings so I could discuss my work with the Owner and he could discuss his.

I quickly learned that a lot of listening, discussion and critique was needed for this job. Every time I came up with a thumbnail design, it was talked about and dubbed either a ‘yay’ or ‘nay.’ This was helpful in letting me develop the ideas that were liked, and taught me how to deal with critique and use it to my advantage. My positive attitude on the job made me forget about the chance of screwing up because I’d learned not to doubt my skills.

In the end I came up with a logo design I liked, the owner loved, and was quickly approved of and the job was done! It happened quickly, but I learnt so many of these skills Al Mackie discussed with the class during the making of the logo.

So thats my example of how I’ve had to use these skills when dealing with a real life design job!

An article on the beginnings of the 3PL business: click me!

Branding Yourself.

[[‘Fem-Bitch’, Toner, A (2014) Ink on paper with editing.]]
[[ This drawing was created to be used as website content and reflects on a part of my identity ]]

BRANDING YOURSELF.

Our first lecture for our new business subject was with Anthony Chiappin on the 21/7/2014. We covered what Branding and Identity was and how to go about branding ourselves as artists.

My recent blog post on my identity can be read HERE.

I’m glad we had this lecture, because branding yourself is difficult if you’re trying to cater to your niche market. What do you let them know about you? What kind of portrayal do you want in the art world? Do you have an attitude or personality when it comes to branding yourself? These are questions I’ve often asked myself and after listening well and jotting down mind maps it became clear on what to think about when creating a brand for yourself.

Brand equity, brand strategy, brand idea, brand architecture, brand personality, brand brief, brand experience, brand management, brand performance, brand value and brand promise are ALL things to consider…quite a lot when you list them down like that!

We watched a TED TALKS with Jacob Cass. In the video he talks about ‘Building a Personal Foundation’, and the steps on how to do this.

Jacob often mentions his social media accounts and how important they are.
He pushes the idea of how crucial it is to be easily accessible on the internet through many social media sites, because it means you have a wider audience viewing your work.
Jacob talks about how an artists blog itself is a great tool on self marketing, communicating and showing your genuine self. On your social media and blog, you should be providing value and building relationships always. Another awesome tip: be yourself! have fun!

My recent post on my social media accounts can be found HERE.

In the afternoon, we had a slideshow by Mandy Rudge on an exhibition done by a group of Level 7 UCOL students. You could see something totally unique in each piece, making it clear as daylight that each student had passionately worked on their exhibition entry while also making it their own.

We were given some tasks to do over a couple of days to pull apart our identities so we could brand ourselves correctly for our future websites…I mean, that’s what this whole project’s about! Creating a website about us! So It’s gotta have a bit of our personality, right?
To attract the correct niche market for my work, I have to learn how to market myself and my work correctly.

Some tasks I need to do now are:
* Mind map an idea of who my niche market might be
* Think about my artistic identity
* Figure out my audience
* Learn about my competitiors
* and begin considering my websites content.

I’ve got a lot of mind-mapping to do by Monday, that’s for sure. And you can count on a large pile of mind maps being photographed and uploaded here soon.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amandajtoner

(For most of my sketches, scribbles and random doodling, I upload to here.)

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amandatonerart?ref=br_tf

Behance: https://www.behance.net/amandatoner

Thanks!

My Identity.

For our current project at IdeaSchool, we’re being given the tools we need to create a website specially for our art, that caters to our niche markets. We’ve been asked to think about our identities; what we are interested in, our beliefs, philosophies and who we are as a person.  This could help us communicate with our niche market, who most likely have similar interests, philosophies etc. By knowing ourselves, we know how to create the perfect website that clearly states who we are and what we’re all about.

So, who am I? What am I all about?
I decided to brainstorm. A lot. And after about three large brainstorms I pieced together what the main passions are in my life, the things I believe in, and how these things are often incorporated into my work.

Besides art, I am extremely passionate about many things. Animals being the main one that comes to mind. I’ve always been an animal lover so naturally they have constantly found their way into my drawings. Mostly I draw them out of comfort, but I never get tired of drawing an animal.

I recently decided to go Vegan, after 7 years of being a Vegetarian. This new lifestyle of mine has made me more aware of the horrors behind factory farms, animal testing, fur farms etc and being the animal lover I am, I feel like I personally cannot support those industries. Being Vegan is also a very sustainable way of living, which is another thing that’s important to me. Sustainability.
I like to feel like during this lifetime, I want to make sure I am the most compassionate I can be, so taking care of the animals and environment makes me feel like I’m doing something that matters.

I believe in equality between all people and creatures. Speciesism and Feminist themes appear in my work from time to time, usually if the topic is on my mind. I’m quite emotional about these matters, so I often angrily draw or sketch out my thoughts and feelings about them in a sketchbook. My emotional work doesn’t often make it onto my social media accounts.

I want to be a tattooist! I love tattoo art and am passionate about the skills needed and the art of tattooing. I’m constantly researching artists, pinning tattoos I love and getting to know the basics of the industry. I was lucky to have a great talk with Emma Kerr, a local tattooist, about tattooing and she gave me some helpful tips and advice. So while tattoo isn’t something I do now, my drawings and designs could easily be transferred from paper to skin, because I purposely design in that style. The path I’d like to go down after I finish my degree would be looking to get a job as an apprentice, hopefully in Wellington.

These are all factors that contribute to my art and things I should consider within my niche market. Does my niche market feel the same way about some of these things? Are they animal lovers? Feminists? Sustainable? Sensitive? Either way, these brainstorming tools on my own identity have given me some great starting ideas on how to design my website to not only fit for my interests, but my target markets.

ink on paper.- Toner, A (2014)