Website Session notes

As one of the components of your Vocational work (remember all of this adds up to around 15% of your mark!), the aim is to set you all up with a simple and easy to manage website.

Rather than worrying about HTML code, tables, domain names and hosting, my suggestion is to use About Dot Me. Here you can create a basic splash page, which acts like the website equivalent of a business card - a page you send people to which gives a bold thumbnail impression of you and your work and provides links to enable them to look at your portfolio of work and get in contact to employ you!

Here's mine as an example: http://about.me/matthewduddington

About Dot Me
http://www.about.me/

• Free
• Very very simple
• Easy to maintain AND easy to set up
• Visuals are the dominant USP - This is great for artists!
  (Doubly great as it's a nice simple earner for Illustrators and (Animators with a strong illustrative ability) as you can offer to do a customised background image to the huge numbers of non-art based people with listings, who otherwise have to make do with (at best) their own amateur photography, or one of the library selection of images which you see the 'best' of over and over (eugh!), or (at worst) nick something off google images or elsewhere on the Internet)
• It links out to all your external media pages
  You need to be part of as many of the main ones as possible to have the best chances of being spotted in blind searches by potential clients. These days it's better to put the effort into a good presence on a range of content sites rather than spending lots of time and money on a totally unique web site when those other sites are likely the first point of contact. A personal website (of the traditional kind) is mainly now for people wanting a more in-depth look at you, your work and your services (that doesn't mean you should get overly complex or busy if you do create a personal page though. Information overload is still a problem!)

Image Size
It's a minefield!
This is why considering the space AROUND your image is important too, with About.me you will choose a solid colour to use around your image if it doesn't tile.

For webkit based mobile browsers 980 px width is the base scale... so 980 x 735 (or 551 for widescreen)
However, I would advise 1024 x 576 for About.me as a good starting point, making sure important elements always have a position distant from the edges. This means you have the nimbleness of a small image for mobile but enough scale to have an impact on desktop monitors.

It's not a bad idea to hold on to / create your images at a much higher resolution (for when technology catches up and you are able to deliver upgraded content just as fast), however, don't use them online yet, because it will be a problem for both screen size AND download time on mobile devices and older computers.


Examples
Some good examples of About.me pages (mainly chosen for the impact of the BG / styling rather than their choice of text etc.)

Illustrators
http://about.me/RodneyPike
http://about.me/chelseaconlin
http://about.me/RolandMacDonald
http://about.me/jcroxas
http://about.me/philhew
http://about.me/robsdigitalart
http://about.me/putuebo
http://about.me/ceciliacerri
http://about.me/margi
http://about.me/kellycarnes

Animators
http://about.me/veronykajelinek
http://about.me/colingiles
http://about.me/dustinbolton
http://about.me/sohrabi
http://about.me/donasia
http://about.me/tombancroft

Examples of what not to do!
Poor layout: http://about.me/vinganapathy
Not enough information about the artist: http://about.me/willpierce
Low level of quality in choice of image: http://about.me/animator
Not the best personal impression: http://about.me/dannyngan
Useing one of the defaut library images (doesn't suggest much for an artist): http://about.me/benwebber


External Sites for hosting content

Jobrary
http://www.jobrary.com/
Image and video portfolio with a CV at the centre
Example: http://indiaink.jobrary.com/

Coroflot
http://www.coroflot.com/
Similar to above but the portfolio take prominence over the CV page
Example: http://www.coroflot.com/tomparry

Vimeo
http://www.vimeo.com/
Professional video hosting site

YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/
Less professional video hosting but gets more general public hits, set up a channel page

Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/
Photo and image sharing and portfolio

DeviantArt
http://www.deviantart.com/
Artist and photography community with image portfolios

LinkedIn
http://www.linkedin.com/
CV focused and aimed more at non-art based careers but still worth having a listing on here

Twitter
http://www.twitter.com/

Blogger
http://www.blogger.com/