If you're an artist, designer, architect, or creative professional, your website is a visual reflection of your work and a functional part of your business. It should showcase your work in the best possible light and make it easy for visitors to learn more, contact you, or purchase.

Having designed many websites across various platforms, here are some reasons I would highly recommend Squarespace for creative professionals.

Professional + Easy to Use
Flexible Features
Mobile Responsiveness
Online Shop Set-up
SEO-Friendly

Here, I’ll go over why Squarespace is my go-to option for artists, architects, and designers, explore some of its best features, provide a few tips to get started, and suggest some alternatives to Squarespace that might be better suited for other types of businesses.

Professional + Easy to Use

Squarespace provides intuitive tools and templates that are easy to use – even if you are not tech-savvy. Its drag-and-drop interface is built on a grid, so you can easily create a beautiful and professional-looking website.

Squarespace has a wide selection of templates that artists, designers, and architects can choose as a starting point or assist in creating a simple site in less time.

Flexible Features

Squarespace allows you to tweak and customize small details, which can make a significant difference in a website. Furthermore, the Site Styles keep the brand consistent, with colors and fonts to use while designing different sections.

Often simpler than other platforms, you can easily add animations and other interactive elements to your website. Depending on your subscription plan, Squarespace also has a wealth of tools that allow you to add custom CSS, JavaScript, and HTML codes to create the exact look and feel you want.

Mobile Responsiveness

All Squarespace sites are mobile-responsive, meaning they are optimized to fit any screen size. For a seamless experience, your website should continually be optimized for mobile users. Squarespace does this automatically, and you can still make minor tweaks in the mobile preview that won’t affect the desktop view if needed.

Online Shop Set-up

Squarespace is a great choice if you’re selling art or items online. Its e-commerce platform is well-organized, and it allows you to sell digital and physical products alike. Squarespace provides an integrated payment system that accepts major credit cards and deposits funds into your bank account.

SEO-Friendly

Search engine rankings are essential to grow your client base or audience online. Squarespace provides excellent SEO features that make optimizing your website for search engines easy – such as meta descriptions and tags that help your site rank higher in search engine results pages. They also provide a convenient SEO Checklist to get your website started on the right path. (If SEO is new to you, be patient, and work through it at a comfortable pace! It doesn’t work overnight anyhow.)

Tips for Designing Your Site

Building a 1 to 5-page website for a service-based business is simple if you're just starting out. Consider beginning with the following website pages: Home, Services, Portfolio, About, and/or Contact.
If you also offer products, there are multiple ways to add a Shop or Shop Page. Read this article for my favorite tips and best practices for styling your shop.
Designers, Artists and Creative Professionals often have tasteful and elegant images on their site that likely have a hi-res original file. To help with site loading time and speed, downsize any larger files before uploading to Squarespace. Although there might not be a magic number, I recommend 2400px to 3600px for full-width images and 600px to 1800px for smaller images at 72 or 150 dpi.
When uploading images to a Portfolio or Shop page, ensure they are sized correctly before uploading. This prevents unnecessary formatting nuances. (For example, if you'd like them all to appear the same size on the website, ensure they are the same size before uploading.)
Squarespace has various functional page templates with blank or predesigned layouts, including Portfolios, Blogs, About, Stores, Events and Courses. It may be helpful to start with your favorite and edit accordingly.
Before creating a Squarespace website, consider how the website will work as an overall tool in your business. Ensure it complements your brand, business, and other software tools you might already be using – such as email marketing or a CRM. (Squarespace offers email marketing if you’re just starting out!)

Alternatives to Squarespace

Although I highly recommend Squarespace, it may not be perfect for everyone. Some other website platforms might be better suited for different types of businesses. Shopify, WordPress, Wix or HubSpot may be a better option for businesses needing different functionalities.

Shopify

Shopify is a great option for mid to large-scale e-commerce and online retail businesses. Products are easily organized by categories and filters. It provides simplicity in organizing and filtering many items.

WordPress

WordPress is the most popular Content Management System (CMS) as of August 2023. It is estimated that 43% of websites are built with WordPress. (It’s also worth noting that WordPress has been around the longest of the platforms mentioned here – and some of these sites have been around that long as well!) WordPress is ideal for medium to large businesses that require advanced functionality, security, and niche customization.

HubSpot

This platform is a standout choice for B2B businesses focused on online growth and scaling. HubSpot is an all-in-one platform for a website, CRM, email marketing, sales, and customer service. When set up well & maintained, HubSpot is highly effective for funnels and workflows.

Building a website has become increasingly relevant for any type of business. Squarespace doesn’t just have an impressive list of features – it is also intuitive with built-in modern design aspects, making it an excellent fit for artists, designers, architects, and creative professionals. Furthermore, there are many ways to enhance your site with code through third-party platforms (some are free & some are paid).

Please reach out if you would like to work with me on your next project, or explore my helpful resources for DIY website projects!

Why I Recommend Squarespace for Designers, Artists, Architects and Creative Professionals