Whitby ArtNet is a group of local artists based in Whitby, about twenty miles up the coast from Scarborough, where I live and work. I very much enjoy working with artists so this was a site I really looked forward to working on.
The brief was quickly to create a basic, but professional site on which members can add and maintain their own pages and then fund future developments from a commission on sales of work. I have lots of ideas about how this site could develop, but I'll keep those under my hat for now. Buy some art if you want to see the ideas :-)
To save money, I based the site on a standard template structure I'm developing. The colours are neutral and designed to show off a wide range of artworks.
I bought the domain name, set up an internal mailing list for Whitby ArtNet members, and set up hosting.
I enjoy randomness as an antidote to digital determinism, so every time you load the main page it chooses a featured artist at random and displays one of their works.
Members may add themselves as an artist, and then add information and an image for each of their artworks. For those who can't get or are not confident online I provide a data entry service for a nominal fee.
It took about 30 hours to build over the last couple of months and cost about £1,000.
The client said I'm a "fantastic web designer", and then more formally "It was so easy for me! John sent me regular updates on the work as it progressed and links to the site, so we could see how it evolved and could amend things if necessary. And it was built even more quickly than he'd first suggested. Overall I'm very pleased with the work and would encourage other art groups to follow. Local groups can sometimes feel parochial and isolated from the 'proper' art world; a website is a great way to showcase our work to the world."