July 22, 2009 Our Attempt at Creating the Ultimate Band Website
Hey there,
I am a part of a funky rap/rock quintet from North Jersey called A.S.B.P.K. I recently read an article here at music think tank entitled “Forget MySpace: How To Build The Ultimate Website To Interact With YourFans” and was immediately inspired to take a crack at creating us an excellent band website to act as our central “hub” that connects all our social networks & encompasses everything that we’re doing.
I have little to no experience with web & graphic design but with about a week’s worth of REALLY late nights I was able to come up with this site for my band:
The site is wordpress-based & is being tracked with google analytics. I took the advice of commenters and steered clear of the “Instinct E-commerce” Wordpress plugin, opting to use a simple Paypal setup instead (it will suffice for now!). The site also utilizes the “gigpress” plugin and several Reverbnation plugins, as well as a wordpress plugin linked with Flickr. We wanted to keep everything simple & easily navigable, and I think we achieved that.
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I would really just love to receive some input & suggestions for improvement because I put a lot of hard work into this! Also, I would love to see your “ultimate band” websites if you’ve taken a crack at it!
Thanks all,
Chris
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If you would like to learn a bit more about Chris, please visit his personal e-portfolio, his blog or his band’s website:
Chris Bracco’s E-Portfolio
Tight Mix — The Future of Music & Audio Recording
A.S.B.P.K. Music
Reader Comments (5)
Well, first off, it's kind of a misleading title. Generally attempting to create the "Ultimate" anything run a bit longer than 7 days.
That said, here's some user notes:
1. good simple layout. You can never go wrong with the logo/album splash and a Navigation bar.
2. EVENTS page. Increase the font size on your RN widget. You've already got you events as an RSS feed in the right hand column -- use that data instead for a more readable and integrated look.
3. Social networking footer, band description, photos, you've got a solid template here. Fans who want to get involved on the site can use blog comments, and you've covered all your bases.
Up next is testing.
thanks so much for the input you have no idea how helpful those 3 points were! I'll get crackin on that RSS Event feed right away.
I'd vote for moving this up to the main page, add some images (just cop some screenshots of the site) and get more commentary.
This is a solid example, and as good as any to start a conversation about what an artists site should look like, how the user experience should work, etc.
added some screenshots....get talkin' people!
hey! i don't think this thread should die just yet....not for the benefit it may have for my band but because we are missing out on some good conversation about the subject of band websites! I'm sure people would love to see more examples of good band sites or the innovative things you are doing on yours....!
_chris