About section

My website is nearly finished but I need to write the ‘about’ section before it can go live. This is not something I have much experience of and is quite daunting. I am going to look through some practitioners websites and try to identify parts of their descriptions that can help me write my own.

Tom Gauld’s website has a very small description of him. The about section is mostly made up of a long list of previous works. Even the couple of sentences about him talk about regular publications he works on. The personal information is simply when and where he was born, where he lives now and that he describes himself as a ‘cartoonist and illustrator’.

“Tom Gauld was born in 1976 and grew up in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. He is a cartoonist and illustrator and his work is regularly published in the The Guardian, The New York Times and New Scientist. He has created a number of comic books. He lives in London with his family.”

I think the way I label myself is going to be key in attracting potential clients. In terms of my history before this course I have designed clothing, worked on spray paint murals and run graffiti workshops. However now my practice is focussed on cildrens book illustration and over the last year I have also been writing the narrative for as well as illustrating them. On one hand I would like to mention my background and previous experiences but I’m don’t think they benefit my practice and could very easily confuse potential clients.

Ben Kirchner’s about section mentions several illustration categories that he produces work for “producing images for editorial, advertising, design and publishing projects.”

I need to make decision as to which categories to include and labels that best sum up my practice, I could say children’s book illustration, publishing, design, narrative etc. I will have to look at more artists sites. Artists that I think work in similar ways to myself. That way I can find out which are the most commonly used terms and make my website and practice easy to understand.

Ben Kirchner goes into more detail explaining his work, “I like to create illustrations that are fun and vibrant with a surreal sense of humour and a strong emphasis on character. I also love portraiture.”

I would like to add a sentence that gives more details about what my work is and my rationale behind it. I think my humour is based around narrative, character, landscapes, emotion and humour.

Ben Kirchner follows on by inviting visitors to the website to contact him through his agency or through a built in comments form. I am not sure I can add this to my site but could still invite potential clients to contact me via email or telephone

The ‘about’ sections I have looked at contain mostly the same information in each, differing mainly in the language used and the detail practitioners use to describe themselves.

It seems to go:

Sentence about practitioner (how old, where from, studied at, current location)
Description of work (publishing, comic, editorial etc)
More detail about work (more personal, humour, fun, colours, movement, etc)
List of previous clients and awards
“Please contact through .....”

I can’t add the previous clients at this part but keeping it simple would seem like the way to go. One well thought out sentance for each subject. I would like to add a bit of personality to it without making it seem too informal or messy.