An online portfolio is your digital calling menu as an artist.

Promoting your artwork in person and online is all role of being a creative entrepreneur and running your own art business organization today.

Your online portfolio is the  first identify that people expect to see if they desire to go frontwards with acquiring a piece from you. That's why you should take the time to become information technology correct.

Collectors, gallerists, and potential buyers expect online to verify your history and credentials as an artist, every bit well as to find and learn more than virtually your work. It'southward come to be an expected function of an artist's business.

So, how do you lay this foundation once so you save time in the future and ensure that your portfolio is working for you?

Use these tips for making a standout digital portfolio and how to get eyes on your work—plus our favorite tools to help relieve you lot fourth dimension.

What every portfolio needs

One of the peak mistakes artists brand when information technology comes to their online fine art portfolios is not taking care of the nuts.

The truth of the matter is that if you want to make a living with your fine art and yous don't encompass the bases of your digital portfolio, you lot could end up looking like an apprentice—fifty-fifty if you accept a whole stockpile of masterpieces.

Why work actress hard to convince buyers that yous're a credible, professional creative person when you lot could but brand a few tweaks to your portfolio and showcase your strengths from the start?

To make sure your portfolio is non holding you back from any hereafter business, check these items off the listing:

Artist Julia Ibbini embedded her Artwork Archive portfolio onto her Squarespace website.

✔️High-quality images of your artwork

Why spend hours, days, and weeks, creating something incredible if the photograph doesn't convey that?

Our advice? Avoid fuzzy, dimly lit, or poorly cropped photos. And, be sure to watch out for whatsoever distracting shadows, camera flashes, or backgrounds. Make sure that your camera settings reflect the true colors of the work and color right the image if need to exist to nowadays an authentic paradigm.

Accolade your work and your career by investing in quality photography or employ these tips to photograph your art like a professional.

✔️Working links

Across your portfolio, you have an entire online presence that tells a story about who you are as an artist and helps sell your fine art. And nosotros're willing to bet you put a lot of work into those outlets!

So when a buyer views your portfolio, clicks on one of these links hoping to view your social media or sign upwards for your newsletter and the link is broken, they are immediately cut off from learning more about yous.

Non but does it leave a bad sense of taste in their mouth, but they may not want to spend the fourth dimension figuring out what to do next. All that work was for nothing, and your brownie took a hitting at the same time. Taking the actress infinitesimal to double check that your links work can make all the difference.

✔️Frequently updated

What if a potential buyer or gallerist asks about your virtually contempo piece of work and you have cipher to show? Y'all are pretty much guaranteed not to make the sale.

Merely similar the Scouts, your motto should ever remain the same—exist prepared!

Often times, it feels like the opportunities simply aren't coming. Merely is that because in that location aren't any opportunities or considering nosotros aren't ready? Ready or non, opportunities will come. Keeping your portfolio stocked with your latest and greatest pieces allows you to jump on any opportunity that presents itself.

✔️User-friendly

When it comes to your portfolio's pattern, make clean and professional e'er should be summit of your list.

No distracting backgrounds. No crazy fonts for large chunks of text. Everything should exist easy—easy to read, like shooting fish in a barrel to navigate, easy to understand quickly who yous are equally an artist.

And while you may want to go wild with design elements, recall that you aren't trying to sell anyone on your web design services. You are trying to promote your fine art! Therefore, brand your artwork the star of the show.

✔️About department

Did y'all know that artist About pages are ofttimes the most frequently visited folio on an artist's portfolio?

But, i of the about common obstacles artists face is how to write their About folio.

When you work in large or conceptual ideas, it can be hard to observe the most succinct, disarming and accurate words to draw ourselves and the work that we practice. You desire to remain authentic to your vision, but yous also don't desire to sound besides cocky-promotional or inflated!

Take a look at these tips on how to craft your artist Virtually page to win over collectors.

✔️Your best piece of work

You're only as expert as the artwork you nowadays. At least, that is how it volition feel to those looking at your portfolio. Call up, the goal of an art portfolio is to represent your technical ability every bit an artist—your cadre strengths, range, and experience in the art earth.

That'southward why it'southward important to highlight what you consider your all-time works—piece of work that volition help you send the bulletin that you are outstanding in your field.

An example of artist Krista Reuter's embedded Artwork Archive portfolio on her Wordpress website.

The devil is in the details

The more professional your portfolio looks, the more than professional you lot appear every bit an artist. That'due south where detail comes in.

Including things like titles, dimensions, mediums, creation engagement, auction toll, and the story behind your art shows that you lot take your work seriously—and it also gives yous an border when presenting your portfolio to clients.

There'southward always more to a work than meets the heart.

And let's face it, whether you're trying to gain representation or sell your work, no gallery director, curator, or collecter likes to chase down artists for information. These are the details collectors need and want to buy your work anyway, so why brand it harder for them to find information technology?

Which leads us to our adjacent bespeak…

Don't forget to tell your story

Fine art is so much more than paint on a canvas. Every artwork has a story: the inspirations, the journey to cosmos, the care and devotion taken with every brushstroke, the message it'due south telling, showing history, and more.

The same goes for you as an artist! You have a unique perspective. Your passion, motivations, personality, upbringing, education, experiences, and the issues you intendance about have all had an impact on the kind of art y'all create.

Telling this story helps sell your art.

Share this story through your online portfolio, and you will connect emotionally with the people who intendance about this story, too.

That being said, a proficient online portfolio will give you room to share. Whether it's an Virtually section with images, a spot for a short bio, a manner to share news, or the ability to group your works into collections, your portfolio should help yous stand out equally an artist, not hide your vocalization.

Creative person Holly Ann Friesen embedded her Artwork Archive portfolio on her Weebly-powered website.

Manage your inventory and portfolio at the same fourth dimension

Don't make more work for yourself! Why non detect a manner to manage your inventory and your portfolio at the aforementioned time?

Take a await at Artwork Archive, an all-in-one business solution for artists.

Not but can you lot go on rails of your whole art inventory online, the of import details attached to each slice, and the electric current locations of your work, but yous tin can manage your whole fine art business—clients, shows, schedules, sales, reports, and online art portfolio—all from one, intuitive tool.

Plus, Artwork Annal'due south latestwebsite integrations allow you effortlessly sync the online portfolio of your artwork (and all of the artwork details stored on Artwork Archive) to your own artist website including Squarespace, Wordpress, Wix and more than.

This saves you countless hours—time that you lot'd probably rather spend in the studio, by assuasive you to enter a slice's information once, and only once!

With a click of a button, you can sync this online gallery with your running inventory of works. Information flows from Artwork Annal to your website, and so your online portfolio is ever up-to-engagement and prepare to impress buyers when y'all organize your inventory on Artwork Archive.

Run across how piece of cake it is to get started.

Share whenever and wherever you can

You lot've followed these tips, made some updates, and at present your online portfolio is on bespeak. Fantastic!

So, what's the adjacent step? You have to promote it!

The cyberspace is vast and competition is vehement. The odds are, people won't but happen upon your artist website accidentally. Sometimes you have to give them a gentle nudge and put it out at that place for the earth to see.

Let'south take a await at some great ways to promote your portfolio:

✔️Email signature

An email signature is an fantabulous way to ameliorate the marketing power of every email that yous send. By providing a link to your portfolio, you're giving buyers, galleries and other contacts the run a risk to encounter more of your amazing work that they may not take had otherwise.

✔️Artist blog

Seeing ad, after advertising, later on ad, is non very heady for an art customer. Just, the fun and engaging content you lot mail on your blog can actually help sell your art past creating goodwill towards your business.

Stick to the 80/20 dominion: 80 pct entertaining, twenty percentage promotional. Then, utilize that 20 percent to promote your online portfolio and drive sales in a fun way.

✔️Business cards

You never know when you'll run into someone interested in your piece of work. Evidence them just how professional you are and further the relationship by whipping out an impressive business card with the link to your portfolio.

Don't become lost in the pack, either! Take a expect at the secret to constructive business cards.

✔️Social media

I thing is clear—social media is redefining how the art world does business. Another great form of content marketing, social media allows creatives to express themselves with more than liberty, frequency, and intimacy.

And while you should be careful not to overdo it with the promotion, calling on fans to peruse your portfolio can help drive sales. Get some mail service ideas with these Instagram tips.

✔️Newsletter

Newsletters can be incredibly powerful tools for artists. Debra Joy Groesser sells a painting off every monthly newsletter she sends out. They're a way for you to tell stories and requite your fans an exclusive window into your creative life.

While delighting and exciting your fans with these newsletter ideas, don't forget to straight them to your portfolio with a potent telephone call to activity.

✔️In person

The great part about having your fine art portfolio organized with Artwork Archive is that you can pull information technology up with whatever device. And, everything is up-to-date, and so y'all tin can impress collectors and answer questions on the spot.

The bottom line?

The more than people who see your artwork, the more probable they are to autumn in love with it. A professional online portfolio is the central to wowing these potential buyers.

But, don't make more than work for yourself than you lot accept to!

Skip the double data entry, disorganization, and lengthy coding projects by embedding your Artwork Archive portfolio straight onto your artist website.

You'll be able to present your work in the easiest, most professional person way possible, while all at once keeping your fine art business organized and thriving. Take the time you only earned back and spend information technology doing what y'all really love—making fine art.

Desire an easy way to manage your online art portfolio? Get started with a free trial of Artwork Annal.