I’ve been working on the heart of my new web site, the portfolio. The biggest problem I have is that I have a lot of images of my work that fall into a variety of categories. Part of what I’m trying to do is generate orders for furniture that I’ve already designed and made, that I have worked out the various jigs and templates needed to make the work and that I can therefore offer for sale at prices lower than I would have to charge if I were to make just one of these designs. I also want to generate more commission orders, which are my bread and butter. I would also like to show my sculptures and sell some of them through the site.
Although this could be confusing and may be on my current site I am hoping to create something of a synergistic effect on my new site, carefully threading between the Charybdis of confusion and the Scylla of too categorical and didactic approach, so that viewers will get excited, or at least very interested in my work, whether they want a made to order, already designed piece or a custom designed commission piece.
I do have to set up the categories though. Art is self explanatory. I am characterizing the work I’ve done for other people as “previous commission work”. A little long, but some people have told me that they weren’t sure what I meant when I showed them pieces as “commission work”. The next category is a little trickier. I am calling it “current designs”. This will be the work that I have developed the production processes for and will initially sell on a made to order basis. Any pieces that sell well will be further developed so that I will have some level of inventory, at least of major components, so that I can ship orders quicker.
There is another category that I will slip into the current designs category, these are pieces that I have designed and not yet built but will sell at a price point as if I’ve already done the preliminary development on. I also would like to show sketches and design ideas. These are to spark new commissions by again developing an interest. Right now I’m not sure how I’ll display that material.
The portfolio page as I see it now will have a “nav bar” under the main heading that essentially has the three main “tags” for the categories plus a “show all” “tag”. Clicking on any of these will sort the thumbs that run vertically on the left. Clicking on a thumb on the far left will bring the data and images associated with that thumb into the central section that “floats” more or less in the vertical center of the screen as the page is scrolled. At least, that’s the idea. I’ve sent Nate my mock-ups, I’m sure he’ll be busy for a while.
Fillingham Art Furniture Design 