For more emphatic guidelines for publicists, which also may be helpful for artists, read Dear Publicists.

In-depth Articles and Tips on creating email campaigns. (Probably overkill for most artists). And 24 Ways has posted a tutorial for producing html emails. and here is list of email tutorials

Do Create a Descriptive Subject Line

It is important to have a clear and inclusive subject line. At the least, include your name, the venue name and date in the subject line.

Emails get lost in overly-filled inboxes. Invitees should be able to easily spot your invitation in their long list of emails.

Don’t Use a Vague Subject Line

Don’t use vague or general Subject Lines like "exhibition", "group show" or "hello".

Don’t FWD: or RE: your gallery’s invite. Make a new email and copy and paste the information into it.

Do Include All Information as Text.

Even if information about the show is in an image, also include it as text. Text is easier to use and store on a computer. Users can copy and paste text into their calendar. Text is easier to see on mobile devices.

For example in Apple’s email client, Mail, it is easy and convenient to save text to iCal. Place the cursor over the date and when the dashed border appears, right-click or control-click the arrow and choose "Create New iCal Event…" and add/modify information.

Be sure to include the name of the show, the gallery, location, duration, date and time of the reception and the url of the gallery. As you probably know if you write out the full url with http:// the url will become a link in most email programs. This will make it easy for invitees to quickly retreive more information about your show.

Do format the text.

Do format the text so that it is easy to read and use white space generously to improve legibility.

Each item should be separated by a line return or line space.

For example:

Name of Show

October 24 – December 5, 2009

Opening Reception: Saturday, October 24th, 5-7pm

Gallery Hours: Tuesday to Saturday 11am to 6pm

GALLERY NAME
16 E. Name of Street, ground floor
City State 10075
t 212 111.2222

http://www.galleryname.com

Some more tips on formatting plain text.

Don’t Add Unnecessary Text

Don’t add unnecessary text, such as apologies. Email invitations are now the norm. Don’t include lengthy press releases for your friends and colleagues. Make a separate mailing list for the press.

Do Attach an Image (or Two)

Include an image of your work or an image of the invitation. Images should not be more than 600 pixels wide or high. Some email clients have very limited horizontal space and there is nothing worse than the horizontal scrolling of an image. Generally images should be jpegs and 72dpi. And the file size should be no more than 300kb. Less would be better.

Please be aware that the default for most email programs for the desktop or online do not show images by default. This is another reason you should always include text of the important information.

If you are using Mac Mail, when adding an attachment be sure to check "Send Windows-Friendly Attachment".

Other email programs and online services will have an equivalent option.

Don’t include too many images, big files or unusual file types.

Be kind to your email list and don’t weight them down with dozens of large files that take up disk space and take a long time to download.

The entire email, including images and text, should not exceed 500kb (.5MB) (the smaller the better). Don’t send print-ready images. Don’t send .psd, .tif, .pdf, video files, word files, illustrator files, etc. To be safe only send jpegs. All email programs and on all platforms will render jpegs but may not read other file formats.

Optional: Do Use an Email Service Provider

This tutorial is meant for artists using their own email program, but there are services which will help manage your email list and offer html templates for creating more designed emails. Naturally they do this for a fee. They offer many features and can make batch emails easier and prettier and also include tracking and statistics. It could be a good idea for a group of artists to get together and purchase one of these services and combine their mailing lists.

Mail Chimp (recommended)
Constant Contact
iContact
MyEmma
SendLoop
Vertical Response

Don’t Use Html

Don’t use html in your email unless you really know what you are doing, in which case you won’t be reading this. If you want to use html use one of the services listed above.

Do Send Email Announcements

Don’t be reticent about sending out announcements by email. Feel free to send one reminder or a closing announcement.

Don’t Send Too Many Email Announcements.

As a rule of thumb don’t send more than 2 email announcements per show. It is very annoying to receive 6 reminders in a few weeks. You don’t want recipients to place your email address in their spam filter.

In Summary

Be specific. Be precise. Be brief.
Include details in text.
Optionally include a properly sized and compressed image.

There are several alternatives for artists trying to create inexpensive portfolio sites for their work. Least expensive are the free blogging sites, though they are the least flexible in layout and design. There are also portfolio website which for a monthly fee provide artists with a way to exhibit their work online. Another alternative is to use WordPress, combined with certain themes. While this last alternative is a little more work to install it offers more fliexibility and control over the long term. Below are a list of alternatives and some examples of each type.

Blogs

Blogs can be an easy, short term solution for creating an artist’s website. Because there are limitations to the ways one can organize artwork, it will be difficult for an artist’s site to grow over the years using these blogging services. Usually images will be stacked one on top of another in a single column. However it can be a good way to get started building a web presence as an artist and to learn some basic skills in website creation. And with a little work and imagination an artist could build a vibrant, informative and professional-looking website.

Below is a list of several blogging services, suggested templates, instructions and examples.

Blogger

Blogger is easy to use and easy to customize. There are many templates available, but I want to highlight this list of templates which can easily be adapted to be an artist portfolio site.

Templates easily adapted as an artist portfolio site.
PhotoPlus
Gallery

Free Templates for Blogger
http://www.bloggerfreetemplates.com/
http://btemplates.com/
http://mashable.com/2009/01/16/blogger-toolbox/

Misc. Instructions for Blogger
Customize Your Blog
Edit The Layout And Colors
Posting Images on Blogger
Posting Images from 3rd Party Services (e.g. Flickr)

Blogger and Flickr
Integrating Flickr and Blogger is a great way to maximize the use of 2 robust web services available for free.

WordPress.com

WordPress.com is the hosted alternative to a self-installed instance of the WordPress blogging software. Your domain name will be yourname.wordpress.com rather than your-name.com Like Blogger it is easy to use and set up and is a very good place to start, especially if you think you might install WordPress on your own someday. Many templates are available, many Widgets can be added, and it can be integrated with Flickr. You can also use TypeKit to augment the fonts that can be used in the webpages.

WordPress.com Features
WordPress.com Instructions
Upgrade to Modify CSS

Tumblr

Tumblr, of all the blogging services, has the most aesthetically pleasing temlate designs. It seems especially suited for creating an artist’s portfolio website and blog. Try it!

Tumblr Themes Directory
Instructions to Customize ATumblr Theme

Tumblr Themes Which Would Easily Adapt to Artist’s Portfolios
Museum Theme
Photo Board
Has a Portfolio
Watch The World
http://safe.tumblr.com/theme/preview/2463 – A beautiful minimalist themes
Use text from here:
to create http://cssgallery.tumblr.com/

Featured Portfolio Sites and Services

Arlo

Arlo(created by Artlog) is designed specifically for artists, photographers, designers & creatives, Arlo/Artists is an easy & affordable way to build a portfolio site. It has pre-made themes, custom domains, unlimited embed-able portfolios and a powerful templating system for $100 a year.
BE sure to watch the video which explains how the service works.

FameDriver

FameDriver – Effortless websites and portfolios for stylists, makeup artists, hair stylists, designers, and artists. It is in beta, so you have to email them to ask for an invitation. Get in on the ground floor.

CarbonMade

CarbonMade For designers, illustrators and artists. A little slick but it works.

StacyApp

StacyApp is a free alternative. As Anthony Kolber of Aesthetically Loyal states:

“Stacey is a lightweight content management system.

No database setup or installation files, simply drop the application on a server and it runs. Your content is managed by creating folders and editing text files. No login screens, no admin interface.”

Other Portfolio Sites

• ArtCat
• Artists Wanted
• IndexExhibit
• iCompendium
• SquareSpace
• Heavy Bubble
• Other People’s Pixels
• Websites for Artists
• Tiny Vices
• Square Portfolio
• Wooloo(free)

Extensive List Of Online Resources

Moshe Mikanovsky has posted and extensive list of online resources for artists with over 100 entries, including online artist portfolios.

Open Source Inventory System

CollectiveAccess, which is meant for museums and collectors, could also be used by artists to keep track of their work. It is a free open-source database for keeping track of large collections. It looks like a very good resource. Most other inventory systems are expensive.

WordPress and WPFolio

An alternative to purchasing the services above is to use the WPFolio template for WordPress created by Eyebeam. The advantages to WPFolio is that it is free and you have more control over the design and content. It requires more work to install and will require work and learning if you wish to modify the design of your site. You can see examples of the template at WPFolio. Scroll down the page to “Users” to see a list of WPFolio sites.

I have written tutorials for setting up a WPFolio Site from start to finish that is meant for beginners and non-technical users.

Do You Need Help?

For a small fee I will do the set up for you. Or for a customized site please contact me.