Yes, "site".
I have spent about a full week, give-or-take, reworking my art website, www.tonycook.ca
Of course, if you arrived here via the site, then you already know that some changes have been made (although you probably didn't stop to think how long it took).
The majority of artists will hire designers to build and maintain their sites, hence just one more area of expense for them. I am fortunate in having spent many years in the web business, reaching back to the birth of the web and before into the early Internet. How that dates me!
However, all that experience seemed to float away over the past few days as I struggled with some new gallery software. Isn't new software always a struggle? I've always found that to be so. The gap since I last did any extensive web design work had left me quite rusty. Of course, it has nothing to do with my advancing years!
Well, I reckon the struggle was worth the headaches and tired eyes. I hope you agree.
For the record, I used software from Visual Lightbox which enables one to create galleries of photographs. Clicking on the displayed thumbnails brings up an enlarged version, while the background is "greyed" out. A slideshow can be arranged to display automatically once one of the images is clicked. This produces a professional-looking gallery. The software is not free for business use, but the cost is minimal when compared with hiring a developer. Mind you, it is not for the inexperienced. (There are many free gallery products on the market, but I haven't found one that doesn't have drawbacks).
The support team at Visual Lightbox are outstanding. Email queries were answered same day or overnight. Once I got myself into their way of thinking, the steps to creating and adding the galleries became quite straightforward. Actually, if I had only read the instructions more closely, I could've saved my self a lot of time. As they say, "When all else fails, read the <expletive> manual".
I have spent about a full week, give-or-take, reworking my art website, www.tonycook.ca
Of course, if you arrived here via the site, then you already know that some changes have been made (although you probably didn't stop to think how long it took).
The majority of artists will hire designers to build and maintain their sites, hence just one more area of expense for them. I am fortunate in having spent many years in the web business, reaching back to the birth of the web and before into the early Internet. How that dates me!
However, all that experience seemed to float away over the past few days as I struggled with some new gallery software. Isn't new software always a struggle? I've always found that to be so. The gap since I last did any extensive web design work had left me quite rusty. Of course, it has nothing to do with my advancing years!
Well, I reckon the struggle was worth the headaches and tired eyes. I hope you agree.
For the record, I used software from Visual Lightbox which enables one to create galleries of photographs. Clicking on the displayed thumbnails brings up an enlarged version, while the background is "greyed" out. A slideshow can be arranged to display automatically once one of the images is clicked. This produces a professional-looking gallery. The software is not free for business use, but the cost is minimal when compared with hiring a developer. Mind you, it is not for the inexperienced. (There are many free gallery products on the market, but I haven't found one that doesn't have drawbacks).
The support team at Visual Lightbox are outstanding. Email queries were answered same day or overnight. Once I got myself into their way of thinking, the steps to creating and adding the galleries became quite straightforward. Actually, if I had only read the instructions more closely, I could've saved my self a lot of time. As they say, "When all else fails, read the <expletive> manual".
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