Building an Audience for Your Work by Textbook Studio

Introduction

As a creative practitioner, it can sometimes feel like there is unspoken labour attached to the end of every project; when a project is over, not only have you produced the work, but then you must find the time and creativity to share your work stylishly with your clients and peers. Without key strategies to manage this element of creative practice, it can at times feel overwhelming, even a bit burdensome. For most creatives, making things is the most important part of their day-to-day, not thinking about how to share their work! Yet without building a network of like minded and interesting people, it may be harder to grow as a practitioner, find new work, and make new contacts.

This resource aims to discuss some tips on building an audience for your creative practice, whether you are just establishing your practice, or looking for some new ways to get your work noticed. We think the key is to find ways to suit your working practice and make engaging with your audience reflect what you do.

Over the last 15 years as a creative studio, we have gained valuable insights into the challenges and opportunities of sharing work in person and online, formally and informally. We have worked on building our networks by finding like-minded people and taking part in our local art and design scene. We have always sought out other creative networks and studio spaces to be part of and learn from, and in fact we have moved studios seven times – from a kitchen table to where we are today. Without a doubt, based on these experiences, the best thing we have ever done is founding our own shared studio space, The Engine House, eight years ago, after it became available at our second home for many years already, Islington Mill Artists Studios. The Engine House has been an unbelievable boost for our business, our creativity and our social time; and we have seen firsthand how a strong support network can increase your profile, your skills, and in turn, significantly impact your career. A high tide really does raise all boats, and one of our studio mates’ success is everyone’s success.

As well as being successful for us, we also get to use these strategies with cultural clients in helping further their reach and expand their networks, and with students on getting their foot in the door, encouraging them to forge their own networks both in and outside the university.

Please enjoy this resource as we aim to provide practical advice and insights to explore strategies for:

— Understanding Your Audience: How to identify your target audience and tailor your work and marketing efforts to their interests.
— Engaging with Your Audience: Strategies for interacting with clients and peers, such as attending and hosting workshops, giving talks, and collaborating with other creatives.
— Networking and Building Relationships: The art of community and cultivating meaningful relationships with designers, curators, collectors, and other creatives.
— Effective Self-Promotion: Creating a strong online presence using a range of social media and networking platforms.

Whether you're a seasoned artist or just starting out, these tips will help you build a loyal following and establish a sustainable career in the arts and cultural sectors.

1. Creating a Website

Creating a website is a crucial step for any creative seeking to establish a presence. It serves as a digital portfolio, a platform for showcasing work, a professional email account, and a means of connecting with potential clients and collaborators. Most portfolio site building platforms have a myriad of templates and tools to help you design and populate a website yourself, but you may wish to hire a designer if you have more complicated needs.

Some cost-effective DIY website builders include Squarespace, Webflow and WordPress. If you’re feeling a little more advanced you could try Cargo or ReadyMag.

When to hire a designer:
— You need help establishing a personal brand that might extend to things outside your website such as business cards, packaging, social media presence, etc. (in this case, hire a graphic designer). A designer can work with your existing budget to help you create a coherent and professional look and feel for your business or project.
— You need to set up a Shopify or e-commerce site (in this case, hire a web developer with expertise in commerce). A developer can advise you on which setup is best for your situation, e.g. if you need to be able to manage it fully yourself.
— You have a specific visual style in mind for your site that requires custom building, animation, or function beyond what the basic site templates can offer (in this case hire a web designer/developer).

Where to hire a designer:
If you need to hire a web developer/designer, as well as asking your networks for recommendations, search open source portfolio hosting sites such as Behance — or even the portfolio builder sites listed above, which often have pages showcasing innovative use of their platforms and tools. There are web developers with their ‘folio on (for example) the Cargo showcase page, where the best examples of what the platform can be are on display, and these designers/developers are keen to be hired for their skills in adapting and customising these off-the-shelf portfolio sites.

Your decision on who to commission will depend on your budget and whether you feel you need just graphic design, e.g. to create a brand for your practice; or graphic AND web design, in which case look for a designer/developer who can do both.

Don’t be afraid to state your budget or ask ball-park what the designer/developer you like might charge for the services you require; but it is polite to state whether you are shopping around, as producing custom quotes can be an in-depth and time consuming process. Understandably, commissioning design services can be an uncertain and expensive experience, but really it’s just a conversation between you and another creative about what you need help with, and how much you are comfortable to spend. Bear in mind, it doesn’t have to be all at once.

Tips for creating a professional-looking website without a designer:
— No more than three clicks to get to the main content / work / products
— If you are struggling to choose a typeface, go for something clear, highly legible, and readily available (most sites use Google Fonts). Some classic stylish choices might be Garamond, Helvetica, Franklin Gothic or Work Sans. Choose a statement font for display titles if you like.
— There are many free guides online on how to buy, prepare and upload your own fonts to a portfolio building site if you don’t like the look of any of the above presets.
— If you do use special fonts, make sure you have the appropriate web license. In any event it makes sense to, as the fonts will be supplied in a file-type ready for use on the web.
— Aim for colours that are higher contrast for greater accessibility using tools like Randomally to help you.
— If you want to try a bit of coding and customising yourself, Squarespace has excellent user-run support forums where you can ask ‘How do I do this?’ questions.
— W3 Schools is also an excellent place to find tips on DIY code. Just be sure to keep a copy of the code you start with, or anything you paste into your site, so that if it doesn’t behave as expected, you have a backup!

Essential features of a portfolio or small business website:
Most websites will have around four core pages (more for additional projects and products). Make sure your site is simple to navigate with clear headings.

Core pages:
1. Home page
2. About page
3. Portfolio / Shop index
4. Contact page (optional, could be included in your about page with other contact info)

Website Hosting and Domain Names:
Many sites offer hosting and choice of a domain name as built in features, but you can choose your own elsewhere if you want something more fun and memorable. Some affordable hosting providers are GoDaddy and BlueHost. For an interesting domain name, try IWantMyName.com. Being mindful of the prices and what is available, you could choose a name which reflects your business such as .art, .project or .studio. There are also lots of fun ones to choose from: .lol, .beer, .fun… the list goes on.

Your website should convey a little of your personality and be visually memorable. For example our studio pals DR.ME have an eclectic work archive soot playground, where you can browse their work in an unconventional gallery dimension. On our own website, we used to have a page just for ‘play’, showcasing side projects that were often self-initiated and experimental and allowed us to learn new skills or test ideas.

2. Social Media:

There’s no getting away from social media, but the main thing is to find ways to make it easier for you to post regular updates. It’s up to you whether your posting style is casual or more polished.

Creating Engaging Content:
Compelling captions and imagery are maybe the easiest part of posting online, as creatives we often have interesting bits of behind-the-scenes content, where we are able to share our creative process or materials. Anything that is visually rich within your practice is useful, so take lots of photos and store them up for when you may want to talk about something but don’t have an image handy. Sites such as Dribble.com made their name on the premise of creatives sharing sneak peeks of what they were up to, particularly if work is still in progress, or contractually unavailable for sharing yet.

Design tools:
You may already have a flair for creating visual posts for your site and socials, but if not, there are free templates in many online design tools such as Canva, Freepik and Later (there are many, many alternatives) to help you choose fonts, a colour scheme and other decorative flourishes. My experience with these tools is that they can often be overly decorative, or fussy. If you follow the rule ‘less is more’ and ideally aim to take anything away that is unnecessary, your posts will be bolder and more impactful. There is no right and wrong way, but you know your own style – either go expressive and bold, or cool and minimal, just don’t sit on the fence or you’ll risk watering down your style and confusing your audience. Consistency across multiple posts is key, and although you may not want the burden of maintaining an extremely stylised and curated feed, keeping a thread of one thing the same, whether typeface or colour scheme, is usually a good idea.

Also you could look to work with a designer to generate a look and feel and maybe some ready-to-go postable assets.

Building a Following:
Consistent posting and engaging with other users via ‘likes’, comments, follows and shares will help you build a following. As for the frequency of posts, you can monitor your audience engagement with analytics tools, such as the ones that come with Instagram. This will tell you which posts have been the most popular and when the best time to post might be, for example lunchtimes when your followers are browsing on their phones.

Consider including yourself in your posts, too. People want to see the face behind the brand, and showing your face on screen gets easier once you have figured out a tone of voice that suits you. A friend of ours, excellent banner maker and artist Tara Collette does her conversational style seamlessly, recording reels of her studio, her processes and behind the scenes of her day-to-day.

You could even look to create content out of other user’s content; for example mentioning work that inspires you, discussing artists / designers from history, tagging current practitioners into a list of great practices/businesses, etc. The more you promote others, the more they may be inclined to do the same for you.

3. Networking

Networking is a scary word to some, but we see it more as making friends and acquaintances with people. We love making introductions and half the time, these connections are forged because of a collaboration on a project, or chatting to friends of friends.

Using Digital Networking Tools:
Maintaining a profile on a business platform such as LinkedIn makes you appear more established and allows others to connect with you virtually. It can be handy when meeting people in person if you are already connected online and have some light conversation material on hand, such as their latest post or a recent project. The more platforms such as this you are able to maintain a profile on, the easier you’ll be to find online; and maintaining them consistently (both visually in terms of branding, and tonally in terms of content), gives the appearance of a highly organised and outgoing practice. To assist with the frequency and cross-posting of updates for your audience, there are tools to schedule posts at certain times and on multiple platforms. Sometimes these are built in, or you can look into services such as Later and Mailchimp.

Choosing the right platforms:
Other social networks could be chosen based upon the audience you want to reach, for example Instagram, Tik Tok and Snapchat are aimed at younger demographics, whereas Facebook, X and email might reach more mature demographics. If in doubt, reach out and ask what your audience would prefer.

Blogs, newsletters and the power of SEO:
For a more structured way of reaching out, you could start an edited-highlights style newsletter with Mailchimp or Substack, or if you prefer longer-form writing, you could try signing up to Medium or keeping a blog on your site. Posts and newsletters around your areas of expertise position you as a person of note and knowledge in your field, and are also useful for search engine optimisation (SEO) and use of keywords so that people can find you online. If you’re stuck for topics, use AI to help you come up with some headings. AI could even write drafts for you, but beware of relying too heavily on auto-written, robotic-sounding text — readers can often tell.

Joining Professional Networks:
A benefit of using a platform such as Medium or Substack for updates over a blog within your site, is the communities of practice that exist already for you to engage with and learn from. The same goes with physical networks and professional bodies. Some of these have membership fees. Listed below are some interesting networks you may wish to look into:

Visual Arts Network South West (obviously!)
Spike Associates, Bristol
CAMP, Devon, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly
Isle of Wight Creative Network
Somerset Art Works
Creative Kernow
Artists’ Union England
A-N – The Artists’ Information Company
Artquest
AxisWeb
Curator Space
Fuse Network
Working Class Creatives Database

There are many more, just try googling your practice, the area of the country you live in and words like ‘directory’ ‘meetup’ or ‘event’.

Go to stuff! — Attending Online and In-Person Events:
If you want people to show up for you, it’s important you show up for them, in person and online, and we can’t stress enough how useful it is to go to events and be a person who is recognised for always showing up. Soon enough you will get to know other regular attenders and inevitably the wider your network of contacts, the more opportunities that will come your way. Some creative events you may wish to attend could be things like:

— Events programmed by arts organisations and galleries in your area such as talks, conferences, workshops, screenings and performances. To find out what’s on, look at VASW’s What’s On page, sign up to newsletters or go to Headfirst.
— Some regular events and festivals such as Pecha Kucha evenings, OD Arts Festival, Flamm, Birmingham Design Fest, Gather (also Birmingham), Glug, Motion North
— Meet-ups associated with the Professional Networks mentioned above, for example Fuse and Ladies Wine Design have regular in-person meet-ups.
— Art fairs and exhibitions. Most galleries have their private view the night before the show opens to the public, and an invite is not always required (wink). Try to get on mailing lists that will update you with upcoming exhibitions at your local galleries, especially the independent ones.
— Your local print fair. We go to the ones that still trade locally to us, but particularly like DIY Art Market in London for the occasional visit.
— Search Eventbrite for local events and meetups, or ask a friend to take you to one that they go to.

Going to stuff with no agenda is absolutely invaluable. One of our most formative experiences as newly-graduated designers was being asked to speak at a student event in Leeds. Initially apprehensive about attending, the evening actually turned out to be the night we decided to start a studio – after one key and unexpected meeting. One of the other speakers was (our now good friend) Daniel Russell, who attempted, with the help of a colleague, to chaotically catalogue how all of their projects to date had come from social connections. He made the memorable statement ‘why would you wait for someone to give you a job [it was 2010, in the middle of a bad financial year] when you could just make your OWN job’, and we decided on the spot we needed to be friends. Making a beeline for him after the talks finished - he was giving out free printed maps from a recent project (another tip we learned: memorable giveaways) - he invited us for a beer at his then place of work back in Manchester, where we were all based, and the rest is history. We ended up with our first (very derelict) studio space, free for the first year, and the friendship and support of Dan and his colleagues, who had recently completed MAs at the nearby university.

4. Communicating Your Work:

Writing your creative bio / statement:
Sometimes referred to as the ‘About’ or ‘Info’ page, your artist bio is always tricky to write, and as a result, often left til last and rarely updated (same with your CV!). Having reviewed hundreds of these info texts over the years, there appears to be no set way of writing. Some practitioners prefer short, minimal statements, some longer and more in depth. Some have lists of clients and achievements, some even have images of workspaces or proprietors. The thing they all have in common is that they explain who they are, what they do, and what the person reading can do about it (more on that in a moment*).

It can be hard to ‘see’ yourself and get a sense of how others perceive you – so if you aren’t sure, ask some friends or colleagues to describe your key skills. You’ll quickly learn what others think you do best, get a bit of a confidence boost, and maybe even discover some things you didn’t expect. Perhaps more usefully, you’ll learn what they don’t see, which may come as a surprise. The more unexpected of these conversations will give you a great opportunity to refocus your brand and personal information to better communicate your core skills, adding or producing new work to your portfolio which really reflects your aspirations.

For a bit of fun, to get your brain going, you might like to play around with ArtyBollocks.com

Self-reflective tools:
There are many resources available through VASW, such as this one by George Vasey, to help you with writing a creative bio; but one favourite self-reflective tool of ours is a Johari Window. The JW is a simple matrix which prompts you to make short, thoughtful lists in response to four questions:

1. Things (about you, your practice, your industry, your career, etc) that are are known to you, but not to others
2. Things that are known to you AND to others
3. Things that are known to others (about you, your practice, etc) but not to you
(you need a friend or two to help with this one)
4. Things that are unknown to you and others.

Completing a simple exercise such as this one can help with organising your thoughts about who you are as a practitioner, what your worries might be and what your ambitions are.

What to include in your creative bio / statement:
It’s important to be clear and concise, as you may only have a viewer’s attention for a short amount of time. For social media bios, even less time, so keep it minimal and fun.

Some key information you may want to include in your creative statement might be;
— your name (personal and/or business name)
— the main disciplines your practice covers (e.g. book design, ceramics, painting, photography)
— how long your business has been established (if you have a client-focused practice)
— why you started the business (if you have a client-focused practice)
— your approach to projects or working with people
— and your philosophy on the discipline(s) you work within.

Try to tailor your bio to whomever you want to attract and imagine how they might read it or what information they might be looking for. As most of us are seeking engagement from audiences or clients, it makes sense to make your bio clear and concise, with a little personality, and with clear ‘categories’ or terms which people can latch on to, even if they don’t know the specifics of what you do (for example, a client may know they need a particular skill without understanding it fully). *You want people browsing your site to get in touch with work enquiries ideally, so make sure your contact details are extremely visible to allow people to get hold of you easily. Your contact area can be playful or engaging, such as posing a question or invitation which may prompt a viewer to get in touch. ‘Let’s work together’, ‘Drop us an email to arrange a call’ etc.

If you have set services or sell artworks, you may want to publish some sample prices, or package deals that you offer to invite enquiries. To link in with social media engagement, you could think about times of year when you may offer a special sale, a discount, a giveaway or a competition to drive engagement.

It is useful to have bios of different lengths, and tailored to different audiences, and as mentioned a little further down this page, it’s good practice to have these things on file somewhere. That way it makes it easier for you to work with press and get featured on websites and blogs, and to quickly share a bio, suite of images or portfolio, should a potential client get in touch.

Some useful tips:
– Use Google Console Tools to monitor who visits your site, and where they have just come from (e.g. by clicking a link on another site, which is known as 'Backlinks').
– Ask an AI chatbot such as ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini to audit your site for improvements.

A quick note on Public speaking and Presentations:
Getting confident at speaking is a matter of practice. Even seasoned presenters, including lecturers and tutors, have about a minute of initial nerves before presenting to an audience of any size. In this situation it is useful to remember that you can absolutely talk about yourself and your work confidently as an artist because you are the artist – and if speaking about work, who better to do it than you, the person that made it!?

When designing a presentation, platforms like Google Slides, and Keynote if you are a bit fancier, have built in templates to help you. If you find yourself struggling to refine a structure, or unsure what content to include in the first place, use AI as a personal assistant to help you, or watch other short TED Talks, Youtube videos and lectures by relevant peers in your field to see which resonate with you.

Even when the worst happens and things go wrong during a presentation, think on your feet and complete the presentation by speaking to your audience, addressing them directly and looking them in the eye. We once presented a project (a fun one) at an event where we had no idea what the setup was, and it turned out the presentation was totally invisible on the white background that it was being projected onto. We finished the presentation laughing at the situation along with our audience while we wildly tried to explain what had been on the slides. The presentation was much better!

5. Creating Good Images

Working with a Photographer:
Make your work stand out by creating a personal style in the manner that you shoot your work for sharing with others. Whether you choose to work with a professional photographer and instruct them on a style, or go for a more DIY approach such as using a scanner or disposable camera with the flash on; creating a style that reflects the personality of your practice is the kind of thing that gets you noticed and projects confidence. Having high quality images is great for press such as blogs and newsletters, and means you can get yourself featured much more easily with a suite of images ready to go.

Choosing the right photographer:
The process of choosing a photographer would be similar to hiring a designer, as outlined above - reach out to your networks for recommendations, and browse folio sites such as Behance and Flickr. It would be useful for the photographer to have some visual direction via a moodboard and a shot list of images you want to achieve. Photographers’ time is expensive due to all their equipment, expertise and (usually) time spent image editing/re-touching as part of the shoot.

DIY Photography - setting up a simple home studio:
You don’t need fancy photography equipment or a studio environment to create great images of your work yourself. Assuming you have some physical items to photograph, such as printed matter or 3D objects, taking a great photograph can be all about the quality of the image rather than a polished finish. Distinctive backgrounds and props can also add interest. Modern camera phones are often built with high quality lenses. Some key things to consider: wait for good natural light (not too bright!) and clear yourself a workspace. When photographing your work, try to set up as much ‘background’ as possible so you have a seamless wide shot without ‘edges’. If you are looking for shots on a plain background, consider using a large sheet of paper or even a clean bed sheet or tablecloth. For a more natural finish or lifestyle kind of shot, consider wooden flooring or a nice counter top, or even outdoors surfaces such as grass, concrete or plants.

Simple photo editing techniques
Make your images look more professional by subtly brightening, adjusting levels, and generally ensuring the colours are true to what you have photographed (for example, are the whites on your book page yellow or grey in tone rather than white?). There are lots of free tutorial videos online with instructions on how to do this; although, you don’t need professional software such as Photoshop or Lightroom, your smart phone can perform a lot of these basic editing functions for you.

Got something in the image that you didn’t intend? Or maybe you want to remove that blemish from the background? AI is your friend here. Just be sure to choose your commands very specifically, or the results might be interesting! A useful command might be something like ‘remove all electrical wires from above the door in this image’.

When taking images, think about how you intend to use them later. In most cases for an online portfolio website, landscape images will be most useful (screens being landscape); but for social media reels or posts, portrait will be more useful. A combination of both might cover all options. Crop to get your ideal composition with whatever orientation you require.

Will you ever need to print these images? For mostly online use, low resolution images are best suited. The internet uses 72dpi, or 150dpi for slightly better quality; whereas print requires 300dpi at the size you intend to produce the images.

Image Editing Software:
Advanced: Adobe Photoshop / Lightroom
Free alternatives: GIMP / smart phone built in editing

To sum up, building an audience is about being plugged in to your local networks and turning up to stuff and for others, getting to know people and helping them get to know you. There are many ways to go about this, as mentioned above, but the key thing is to consider it as much a part of your ‘work’ as your creative practice.

Textbook Studio is a design studio focused on arts, culture and education; founded in 2011 by Vicky Carr and Chris Shearston. Textbook design books, exhibitions, identities, packaging and websites for artists, galleries, organisations, businesses + people.

This guide is commissioned in partnership by Arts University Bournemouth, Arts University Plymouth, The University of Plymouth, University of the West of England and VASW.