Mar 2, 2011

A New Look and Some Free Web Design Resources

I am super excited to have finally updated my website, dsbrennan.com. I am loving the new look!



I've been working hard over the past few weeks on a bunch of intimidating sounding projects like SEO (search engine optimization) and branding. Like so many things that we artist types procrastinate on, once I got started I found that they weren't so difficult after all. The Etsy Success Symposium Videos and the Etsy Guide to SEO were both super helpful resources that explained things clearly, in a way I could understand.

My website redesign incorporated a lot of the new tools I had learned, on top of giving things a bit of a dust-off and makeover. I thought I'd share some of the resources I used to design my own website. I don't have the budget to hire a professional or even buy fancy web design software. Instead, I used free software and widgets:

Web design and FTP: Mozilla's SeaMonkey

Embedded Galleries: PictoBrowser, linked to my Flickr account

Embedded Products for Shop Page: Etsy Mini

My photo editing software was the only product I used that was not free, but it was affordable and I already owned it, so it wasn't an additional expense. If you're not a photographer, there are some great free photo editing/graphics programs out there too. I use Paint Shop Pro Photo, which costs about $80, but Picnik and GIMP are some great free options. If you have a Flickr or PicasaWeb account, you already have access to Picnik.

I hope these resources might come in handy for you! I'm certainly not a web design expert, But if you have questions please leave a comment and I'll attempt to answer them.

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous3/02/2011

    Those are fantastic resources, thank you for sharing!
    -Lisa

    ReplyDelete
  2. @ Lisa

    Glad to help!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous3/04/2011

    Looks great Diana! Just revamped my blog!

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for sharing your thoughts!