Web Site Development - Help

  • Thread starter Thread starter DigitalDon
  • Start date Start date
Nice tidy site

Not fussy, good business site that looks professional, because it IS professional.

However, what is cheap for someone running a business may not seem so cheap to someone doing home recording, who just wants to put a CD out and get some feedback.

Whilst I'd love to be able to just hand the project to a pro and say 'get on with it, send me the bill' that's not something i can afford to do. Getting my CD produced will probably set me back £500 just ofr the duplication and printing, leaving aside the costs of equipemnt, promotion etc. Doing my own site is time consuming but affordable!

In any case i think the type of look to a site that is just right for you as you are running a business is different to the more 'arty' look which is more desireable for an artist/band. I don't mean that in any critical sense, just different sites for different purposes.

Horses for courses as they say.
 
FYI, I design websites on the side. I actually designed the site for my record label and I've got nothing but positive reviews. If someone on here needs a site that looks extremely professional, I'm sure I may be able to work out something with you. I have examples of my work that I'd be willing to share with any interested parties. I do Flash, HTML, etc. Flash is very good for artist websites, because it can be an interactive multimedia experience. Of course since I'm not there on location to do photoshoots, you'd have to provide your own pictures, so that I can blend them into the content of the website, etc.
Just trying to give back to the community.

Thanks,

-Jhae.

jbdd21@insightbb.com
 
Wow, this turned into a crazy ethics discussion. As someone who codes and makes music it's all a matter of scale to me. It's one thing if a kid is ripping MP3s and sending them to his friends. As a no name who has never made money through music I see it as free advertising via word of mouth like us old geezers use to do with tape trading. Unfortunantly the debate is a bit more difficult because the copies these days are identical and don't degrade with play or generational copy (theoretically). Now some dude bootlegging tons of stuff for sale on the street is a different matter.

As far as web work goes I don't mind people taking little bits of code to do specific things. That's how I learned. But hopefully they will find their own way to use that code and not in exactly the same way. I've never been aware of having my code stolen except once when the thief stole the entire site and barely replaced some content. He/she even used most of the same images and left in all the personal HTML comments to the other developers on the team! It was a really ugly and simple site so I'm still baffled why that site was stolen.

ANY WAY... since my first comment over a month ago I started using Dreamweaver MX a lot for work for it's server syncing and version control. What this means is that you can make a bunch of edits to your site and hit one button in the end to auto upload all the new changes. Makes things easier when you don't have to keep track of all that manually. I still hate what it does to code so I mostly use it as a fancy color coded text editor. It's very helpful to see code multicolored because it's easier to see if you've forgotten an end tag or mistyped syntax. I concur with whoever said it speeds up learning (even for me who should know this stuff pretty well after a couple of years) because it has a little reference area in case you forget the specific syntax of a tag or the specifics of an attribute. A friend just starting out with web stuff really likes Cute HTML. It's all a matter of finding something that makes you feel comfortable. I think most software have demo versions.

Just a quick reminder that search engines are your friends. I've discovered that there are a TON of forums like this except for web developers and programmers. Good luck and may you never be too frustrated and quit.
 
Is this good or bad design?

I've been looking at sites by well established artists to try to get some flavour of how artists in a similar genre to what i aspitrre to have their sites designed.

I went to visit Neil Youngs site...

http://www.neilyoung.com

I'm not quite sure what to make of it. I mean no pics of Neil, no biog, little info really of any kind on the artist and what he's up to currently. Or at least if it is there it's not easy to click on!

On the other hand (more positively) the design is not boring and run of the mill, they have at least tried to make it 'different'. I assume the references would all mean something significant to a Neil Young fan, maybe refer to his latest album(cover) or something? But they were lost on me!

What do you guys think? Is this type of design innovative? Is it something that only an established artist with a secure fan base should go for? Would it be better for the artist if there were a more conventional approach with lotes of info and pictures about him, etc? After all, a non-fan might just want some basic info/biog etc?

By way of contrast I visited Bob Dylan's site, and got more or less what I expected, info, pics, etc.

Can't help thinking a combination of the two approaches to design would be the best way to go.
Any views?
 
Artist sites like that are kind of cool in a way. They offer more than a vanity page plastered with publicity photos. Young seems to be promoting more than himself so it makes sense. I think there is an art gallery as part of the site. The not so cool part is that it's a fairly unique interface so part of the fun (frustration) is figuring out what is clickable and where the link lead to. It's not nearly as cryptic as some experimental web site I've been to so that's good. You're right there is definitely a best of both world's option if you are open to it.
 
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