I find it difficult to keep on top of my website and social media when I am studying, however now that we are approaching graduation I have started to revisit my online pages. I always update my website over the breaks so currently my work up until Christmas is on there. I spent a lot of time on the design and navigation of my site last summer but it is something that I always struggle to be happy with and constantly want to change.
I want my website to be simple and clear, but I also want it to show some of my character, which is why I chose this design. Looking at it again after another semester at CSM, I feel like it’s time for another complete change, as my landing page doesn’t really reflect what I do anymore. I have done a really wide range of projects so its difficult to make everything look coherent on one page, but I notice that the way I display my work here would make if difficult for somebody to understand my style at first glance. I’m really reluctant to remove my 3D projects from university from my site because I worked so hard on them and they are strong pieces, however they are not at all relevant to what I want to do now. I might find a new layout that doesn’t remove them from the site completely but doesn’t have them on my main page.
As I update my site I really want to tailor it towards puppet and stop motion animation, and in general give it a much more professional look. The portfolio I made for my final project has given me a lot of content to sell myself as a mixed-media animator as well as a model maker and post-production artist. I think the best way for me to sell myself would be to have my landing page go straight to my showreel once I cut it together, that way the viewer would immediately see my strongest work and know exactly what it is that I do. I think it would also be interesting to include some behind the scenes pictures and footage from each film, it’s something I really love to see when I’m looking at other peoples websites.
I have been looking at the websites of successful stop motion artists who would be a relevant reference for my own site. I found it interesting that a lot of the animators I was looking at don’t actually have a webpage but instead use Instagram or Vimeo/YouTube as their portfolio pages. It might be more useful for me to update my social medias so that they are more on-brand as it’s a really good way of getting engagement and putting your work out there.
During production of A Sound Mind, I really enjoyed getting behind the scenes content and posting it to my Instagram stories. I found that I got a lot of engagement from them and people loved to see my process and outcomes. I find that I use stories a lot more than posts but I know that it is important to have my feed up to date so if people go onto my profile they can see my work right away. I definitely have a lot of content that I can post, and now that I am finishing up production I want to focus on sharing my animations and BTS content on my feed.
I also want to start utilising my LinkedIn page a bit more, it is a social media that I find very intimidating but many of our guest lecturers have highlighted how much of an asset it is to job hunters and recruiters alike.