If my life was a movie, it would be called Serendipity. All my life I have had some pretty spectacular chance events and meetings but this year takes the prize in terms of my creative journey. I have come across so many amazing creatives this year who have knowingly or unknowingly helped me immensely, not only in a practical-how-to-do-this way but also an emotional-I-can-do-this way. I hope I am making some sense. :p

Well the point being thank you, Mimi. You came at the right time and this class was just the push I needed. :)

 

So after a long week of planning, gulping down God knows how many cups of tea, executing, and planning some more, I am so happy to share my very own website!  Aaaaaaaaaaaaa! *cannot keep calm*

 

Here we go! Presenting…..

www.confessionsonmychalkboard.com

Password: Anuradha

 

What is Confessions on my Chalkboard?

As an artist and maybe even more so as a self-taught one, we all go through phases of uncertainty, blocks and worst of all self-doubt. And I want to fix that, for myself and for everyone else going through the same. So I decided I want to make “Confessions on my Chalkboard” into the happiest, most inspiring space that I can for creators across the globe. I hope to fill it with happy doodles and prints and share my learning with other creators.       

 

Website Preview 

 

 

 

Here’s how I went about building the website. 

 

Process

1. Goals and audience: This is the first thing in Mimi’s template and rightly so. In my case I want the website to be a place where I can provide art beginners “a place to begin” literally! From sharing what I know in the form of classes, workshops and blog posts, I hope to make things simpler and less overwhelming for them (I have some fun group doodling projects in mind as well :D). This would be the primary goal and target group for my website. Secondly, I also want to use this platform to share all the happy prints that I design and link it to my Society 6 shop. The third goal is a long term one but something I want to get to this year. It’s building a professional portfolio and getting licensing projects through it. Although Adobe Portfolio also seems to be a great option and I might use that and have its link up on the website.                                                                 
2. Site content: Before selecting the template, I made a quick list of things I need to show on the website. This helped me identify the most important sections and see which theme can present them in the best way. 
3. Template selection: I quite liked the Narrative theme for it seems to have a nice flow in terms of story-telling. Also loved the end-to-end images. I did like the header & footer better in some other themes but Narrative has better capabilities in terms of sections so I went with that. The other theme I loved was Brooklyn in case anyone reading wants to check out other options. 
4. Site Navigation & Home Page Wire frame: So for these two steps I spent quite some time scribbling and sketching on paper to brainstorm ideas and ways I could go about it. At this point, I also referred to websites of other people who I admire or are doing something similar. And also kept the theme open in front of me so I would know what all can I do with the individual sections. For the navigation I kept it simple and created 2 levels only as Mimi had advised. 
5. Website Building: And finally I started building the site and played some more with the flow. I did run into a few issues like there’s a lot of default space between each section and the font options were limited. But it was really fun to tweak sections to fit my vision and overall I think this theme worked quite well. I will be working on setting up the other pages and linking everything next. 

Here’s my complete site plan for reference.

 

 

And that brings us to the finish line. Sorry about the long piece. I am a fan of big lists and detailed documentations! :p

 

Until next time,

Anuradha