The article
On an artist's site, a picture of a painting is all most visitors will ever see of it. If the picture is small, soft or slow, they judge the work by it. A curator, a collector and a client who wants a commission each come for something different, but all three start with the images.
My background: 18 years in software development, and a company of 70+ specialists with 150+ finished projects since 2017. This page is about artist website design for painters, illustrators, sculptors and other visual artists. Photographers have their own page; musicians will find more on bands and music schools and studios. Those pages sit under website design by industry, one branch of our web development work.
Who comes, and what they look for first
- Curators and galleries: the body of work by series, the statement and a current CV.
- Collectors: the piece itself - title, year, medium, size, whether it is available, and the price or a way to ask.
- Commission clients: past commissions, the process, the timeline, a starting price and a form.
- Press: a short bio and images that print well.
The pages an artist's site needs
- Works, grouped into series, with title, year, medium, dimensions and availability under each piece.
- Statement and bio.
- CV: exhibitions, residencies, collections, awards and press, each with a year.
- Exhibitions and news, including open studio days.
- Commissions: examples, the steps, the timeline, how to start.
- Prints or a shop, if you sell online.
- Contact, with an inquiry form for sales and commissions.
Images: sharp on a large screen, light on a phone
- Upload the best file once. The site cuts a set of sizes, and each browser takes the one that fits its screen.
- Export in sRGB, the color space browsers assume, so colors shift least from screen to screen.
- Describe each work in its alt text. A screen reader reads it aloud, and Google uses it to understand the image. Alt text helps accessibility but does not by itself make a site ADA compliant; that review is our separate ADA website compliance service.
- Skip the watermark. Across the work, it spoils the only view a visitor has, and a blocked right click stops nobody, since a screenshot takes a second. What protects you is size: screen-sized files online, print files kept off the site.
Big images need not mean a slow site. Build Wise Investments, a contractor's site with full-screen sections and project galleries, scored 100 in all four Lighthouse categories on a phone when PageSpeed Insights tested it on October 5, 2026, and its admin lets the owner add each finished project with its gallery.
Selling originals, prints and commissions
An inquiry form comes with the $499 site, so a collector can ask about a piece and a client can describe a commission. Payments on the site add $500, for prints or originals with a checkout; you mark a sold original in the admin. Booking adds $500, for studio visits or workshops by time slot. Numbered editions, other languages and similar features are priced before work starts.
How collectors and clients find you
Collectors and curators search your name, so your name and medium belong in page titles, and the bio and CV give Google the facts behind them. Commissions are often local: "portrait painter Miami", "mural artist Fort Lauderdale". A page for each kind of commission that names where you work answers those searches. Every page also gets a link preview with its image, so a collector who forwards a piece to a partner sends the painting, not a gray box.
What builds trust, and what breaks it
Trust comes from a dated CV, exhibitions, collections and press, photos of works in real rooms for scale, commission reviews with names, and plain terms on shipping, framing and returns. Where artist sites usually go wrong:
- Images 600 px wide, or 8 MB each.
- No size or medium under the work.
- "Inquire" with nowhere to inquire.
- A CV that stops three years ago.
- Instagram as the only portfolio.
Even the two studio pages Google showed me for "artist website design" in October 2026 slip: one describes 3 of its 10 pictures, the other offers phone sizes on 4 of 31.
Ten minutes with your portfolio site
| What | Why it matters | How to check |
|---|---|---|
| Sharpness | Online, the image is the work | Open a piece on the largest screen you have |
| Weight | A phone should not download a print file | PageSpeed Insights: "Properly size images" |
| The facts of each work | Size and medium shape a buyer's decision | Title, year, medium and size under every piece? |
| A way to ask | Interest fades fast | One tap from a work to the inquiry form? |
| Picture descriptions | Screen readers and Google read them | Lighthouse: Accessibility |
| Link preview | Works are shared in messages | Send a work's page to yourself in WhatsApp |
The price of artist website design, and what remains yours
The portfolio site is $499, paid upfront, with up to three complete redesigns before launch, an admin for works, shows and press, basic SEO and Google Analytics. Support at $29 a month, billed annually ($348), includes 1 GB for files and 20 GB of monthly traffic; a larger plan, 5 GB with 100 GB, is $120 a year extra. The package terms are in the $499 article, the support terms on website maintenance.
Your images, texts and name stay yours, as do the domain you register and the analytics. Once the site is paid for and delivered, its code is yours too, as an archive. The design starts from our templates, so a layout may repeat on another client's site, never your work; a design drawn for you alone means a custom website. Clutch shows our rating as 5.0 across 26 verified reviews (September 2026). Makers who sell pieces can also see jewelry websites; other packages are on the pricing page.
