Where do I start!?
You want a website. Great! Before you contact me (or another web
designer!), you should assemble a professional quality promotional package: biography,
repertoire list, photos, reviews, and whatever else you want to include on the site and
have available in your press kit.
Photography:
Professional photos are key to the design of a visually interesting, dynamic and unique
website. If you have good quality, recent colour photos, it's much easier to design a
beautiful website that complements them, using the colours, textures and styles in your
photos as the inspiration for the site. Old black and white headshots, or photos that your
neighbour took in the back yard, just don't read the same way as beautiful full colour,
professional photos. I can hook you up with a great photographer if you need one.
Written Materials:
If you need help writing your biography or editing your reviews, I can connect
you with a publicist who will make your accomplishments sing. It's hard to be
objective when you are writing about yourself - to focus on things that make the most
impact, and present them in an engaging way. So many artist bios read like grocery lists!
Why not make yours stand out from the crowd?
Client Form:
Once you have your materials ready, fill out our
online Client Form or download the
PDF Client Form. This will give you a starting point for planning your
website - think about any special requirements, preferences and ideas you may have
design-wise (colours, style, fonts) and content-wise. The form will give you a way to
summarize and figure out how many pages, and what kind of site we're looking at in terms
of complexity and price point.
Send the client form to me and we can use that as the starting point
for our initial discussions of your site - by phone or in person.
Pay Deposit:
I will invoice you for half the design fee before starting work on the site.
Please visit the Payments page to review your
payment options. We now accept credit cards and PayPal!
Send Materials:
You can email or "snail mail" your materials to me. Anything sent
digitally is usually better, as it saves me time typing and scanning, so saves you money.
Once I have your materials and deposit, and we have discussed your ideas
and preferences for the site, I design a draft page from which we can start tweaking.
Then, once you're happy with the layout of the first page, I will complete the site and
post it (hidden to the public) for your approval. The remaining balance is due upon your
approval of the site, before it is posted in full and linked up to your domain.
Domain Name and Hosting Set-up
I do the setup of domain name, hosting and email address(es) with Server101, and
charge that to your credit card - the annual cost of hosting is about $99US/year, and a
.com domain $15US/year.
