July 25th 2020: Creating the Website for The Online Studio

Obviously the website for the online studio is an incredibly important part of the project. I want it to be as professional as possible, and I therefore have chosen to use Wix for creating the website. I initially did some research into what kind of layout's and looks I want for my online studio, and have gone into detail into these in my R+D book, with screenshots and explanations, so please refer to that. The general consensus however is that I want something which is clear, modern and minimalistic. This is based on the fact not only that it looks more professional, but my style of work is usually very ''out there'' with enhanced colour's and artistic styling. I want the work to stand out, and not be overshadowed by a fancy website surrounding the work.

Creating and registering a name for the website:

Coming up with the idea for a name was fairly simple for me. I wanted to create a brand name

for my work and have always liked the word “Meister” which means ‘master’ in German. I think

that German words have a clinic and stylish sound to them. It was also important to use the

word ‘studio’, so both of these came together to form Studio Meister. Using godaddy.com to

look at what domain names were available; I saw that whilst both words were commonly used

in websites, they weren’t used together. I had various options, so I registered

studiomeister.com. An address without hyphens and using a .com is best practice when creating

websites

Website set up:

I registered an account using wix.com and decided to upgrade to a premium account so that

there weren’t any ads appearing on my site. I felt it would look more professional and the

additional cost was worth it. I also registered the domain name with wix.com so that it was

simple to connect together. The dashboard walks you through all of the steps required to set up

the site. Some of them didn’t seem relevant to this project, such as getting an email address or

using the mobile app. So I followed the most relevant steps to start the set up.

Template for the site:

There are a huge number of templates to choose from and they are usefully categorised. I

looked first at the fashion and style templates for inspiration. Many of these templates seemed

to be designed for fashion retail; such as clothing or make-up. Others seemed very ornate which

didn’t match the style I wanted to create. Next, I looked at the creative and design templates

which were more stylish, but not quite right. In the end I settled for the sleekest and most

minimalist template. I wanted to be able to adapt this one so that my photography could take

centre stage and the template was just a way to showcase my work.