7 Ways to make your Website Accessible

Posted Leave a commentPosted in Administration, Branding, Websites

A great way to reach more people with your arts business is to ensure it is accessible to everyone, regardless of ability and the best way to start is by making sure your website is disability friendly.

The most common types of impairments that you need to think about in your website design are:

  • Visual Impairment: anyone who is blind, has low vision, requires corrective eyewear or is colour-blind.
  • Physical Impairment: anyone who has restricted movement caused by a disability or struggles with certain motor skills like moving a mouse or typing on a keyboard.
  • Hearing Impairment: anyone who is deaf or hard of hearing.
  • Psychiatric Disability: something you need to be aware of should you have content which may be triggering to someone with mental illness.
  • Photosensitivity: users with epilepsy who could have seizures induced from flashing lights.
  • Cognitive Impairment: a disability which affects someone’s cognitive functions like dyslexia, dysnomia or dementia.

With that in mind here are The Arts Business’ top tips for making your website accessible

  1. Image Tags Alt text

You should be doing this already to improve your SEO but for accessibility purposes you basically want to give a detailed description on what can be seen in the images on your website.

For example, if this is the image you’re using:

Then a good alt tag would be ‘ballet dancer in a forest’. An even better one might read ‘Ballet dancer in black leotard and tutu, standing on one foot en pointe in a forest in the sunshine’. Whatever you do, don’t leave your alt text blank.

  1. Colour Scheme

There are a few things to consider here.

Firstly, think about your company’s branding, try to use distinctive colours. Think about shades of colour, for example, if you use indigo and lilac in your companies branding ensure the colours are not two similar shades of purple as this could make your content difficult to decipher.

Next, you must think about a potential user who is colour blind. We’ve all seen the colour-blindness tests, right?

Think about the colours you’re using together and if in doubt of colour combinations, you can refer to the image above. If you want to learn more about different types of colour blindness you can visit the Colour-Blind Awareness Website.

  1. Text Sizing

Primarily you want to ensure that your text is an appropriate size, colour and font which is easy to read.

So, for colour, think either light coloured font on a dark background, or a dark coloured font on a light background. I have dyslexia myself and find it much easier to read black text on a yellow background which is also something to take into account.

And it is so important to think about the readability of your chosen font type. Print types of font (serif and sans serif) are generally easier to read than handwriting or calligraphy fonts (script) especially if you’re writing long blog posts, you want to keep the reader engaged. Time is precious and if your audience struggles to read your font, they’re quite simply not going to bother.

Sizing is slightly more complex. Yes, simply put, you want to make sure the size is readable. Think about your target audience here. If your target audience is in the 50+ age range, you will want to have a larger font to start with.

You will also want to check the quality when you zoom in. Ideally, you want your website to be responsive which means that when you zoom in and out the font reformats so that you can still read all the content from left to right. This is more difficult to programme depending on the software you have used to make it, so don’t worry if you can’t do this. Just check it out for yourself on different devices.

  1. Device Friendly

Similar to no. 3 you need to check the ability to resize text and imagery across different devices, ideally on a phone and tablet.

You will also want to check your imagery and colour scheme to ensure it is still readable on devices with different resolutions.

  1. Closed Captions

This is a simple one! If you have video content, subtitle your work. Most online video platforms like YouTube have editing software to enable you to add subtitles yourself quickly and easily!

  1. Tab-able keyboard friendly

Bear in mind that some physical impairments mean that users can’t use a touchpad or mouse so you have to make sure that your website can be navigated through their keyboard.

Don’t panic if you’re not up to scratch on your keyboard shortcuts. The simplest way to check this is by using your up and down arrows to scroll, tab to move between tabs on the page and enter to select links. So long as that works it’s keyboard compatible.

  1. Hyperlink Format

When you create a link in a post you want to describe the page it will lead to. You want to avoid links like Click Here or Read Now as they are an accessibility nightmare. So instead of:

Read up on Inside Theatre in our latest app of the month post click here.

Try:

Read up on Inside Theatre in our latest app of the month post

All pretty straight forward and as an added bonus this will also help you with your brand design and SEO!

If you want to know how accessible your website currently is just head to the Web Accessibility Website to check your page one by one, or looking at the Experte Accessibility Checker to assess them all at once! Just stick in your address! They’ll outline any problem areas of your website in terms of accessibility.

What have you done to make your website more accessible? Let us know in the comments below!

La La Land: Fantasy vs. Reality

Posted Leave a commentPosted in Creative Industries, Music, Theatre

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

 

I don’t live in LA, nor have I ever been, but in the same way I’m sure that no movie about American High School has actually accurately depicted an American High School I am positive that La La Land does not accurately depict what life is like for an out of work actress and struggling jazz musician living in Hollywood.  Feel free to stop me if I’m wrong (those of you who are struggling actors in LA will know better) but Emma Stone seemed to swan in and out of mansion parties as if this is the normal way to network.  The production parties I’ve been to have mainly consisted of a theatre foyer with a dodgy catered buffet and box wine but who am I to judge?  Maybe life is that different across the pond.  Now, I’m not stupid.  I know that embellishment is added for the sake of entertainment.  I’m not here to pick holes…

 

Despite the mixed bag of reviews I received before finally getting round to seeing it myself and the poor singing and dancing that is bettered every year on Strictly Come Dancing aside, I think La La Land raises some important truths worth pondering over which tend to play out in our careers and businesses, wherever we may be in the creative industry.

 

I was mentoring a young actor, a year into her drama degree, who moaned that she was sick of her retail job and was looking for something, anything, even remotely associated with theatre, her chosen specialised field.  Isn’t this what Mia (Emma Stone) does?  What Seb (Ryan Gosling) tries?  What we all do?  Many of us start off in the arts working in bars or restaurants, front of house or box office.  So long as it is part of a theatre or gallery or festival or music venue we feel in the thick of the action and it’s ok for now.  And I commend these people!  The passionate dreamers!  Our dreams get a little more jaded as we age but we start off fighting!

 

The audition process illustrated in La La Land unfortunately can be faithful to real life, which is a shame.  When they are run by bored minds who no longer really care about the work they are involved in they leave hopeful actors worn out and weary, hope dying with every rejection, like Mia.  She tells us she has been ‘trying to make it’ for 6 years and basically can’t be bothered with it anymore; dejection and fear has settle in.

 

The general consensus across the creative industries is that no one gets into the arts for the money so the moment you stop really loving what you’re doing is the moment you should stop or at least change course.  Sometimes it’s the rebuffs, sometimes the lifestyle.  I used to work in stage management and found my decision pretty much came down to this: Do I want to have a social life or do I want my work to be my entire life.  The love wasn’t there any more, so I left.  But what can I say: lady theatre dragged me back, just down a slightly different path.

 

Obviously, everything works out in the end, in the film at least.  Mia becomes a Hollywood Star due to the unprecedented success of her one woman show and Seb uses the money he made in his modernised Jazz band to fund his dream jazz bar business.  Obviously not entirely realistic but very Hollywood (and with a dream ballet sequence, the likes of which haven’t really been seen since Oklahoma!, who is complaining)!

 

So what should you take away from this movie?  What is the moral?  Sorry to sound pessimistic but dreams don’t always come true, at least not in the way you think.  I think the moral is that your life has to adapt with your craft, sometimes we must compromise and other times we must evolve.

 

The speech that struck me was that of Keith (John Legend) who tells it Seb Straight:

 

“How are you gonna be a revolutionary if you’re such a traditionalist?  You hold onto the past, but jazz is about the future.”

 

He has remembered something integral: art is a business.  To stay on top we need to roll with the punches.  He takes traditional jazz and gives it that contemporary, commercial twist for a new audience who, with any luck, will look into the origins of where this music came whilst continuing to carry it into the future with them, introducing a new audience and a new, evolutionary art form.

 

Seb makes his money in this band uses it to fund his dream bar.  Clearly, during his time spent with The Messengers Seb has learnt a few lessons, which are reflected in the bar set up.  The layout of his club takes us back to a 1940s feel of what jazz bars would have felt like, something which is fashionable at the moment, especially if you’re looking for that new hipster hotspot.  It serves fancy drinks in  fancy crystal, also super trendy, as opposed to the fried chicken sticks he originally longed for (now presumably reserved for the end of the night).  Then the jazz is the cherry on top.  He has nailed a business which gives him an outlet to perform the music he wants, whilst turning over (we hope) a profit.

 

You might be thinking this is a corporate way to analyse this movie, I prefer realistic.  So, look at Seb’s success, cut past the romance, the song and dance, the bright colours and remember to keep business and at the heart of your operation.  Drive your desire constructively to developing your values alongside the current climate with the aim of breaking even or making money so that you can reinvest it and do more work that matters to you and your viewers!  Adapt your mind set and progress with the times.

 

Your enthusiasm will always show in what you produce.  When things get tough, always remember your audience can see more than you think.  After all as Mia says:

 

“People love what other people are passionate about.”

 

What did you take from La La Land?  Any business strategies you think I’ve missed?  Or opinions your yearning to share?

10 Must Have Skills to Smash Your Admin: Part 2

Posted Leave a commentPosted in Administration, Business Skills

Welcome back!

Time for those last 5 skills to needed to smash your admin!

6.       Spend Time Filing

You’ve heard of the expression ‘a stitch in time saves nine’?  This expression may be clichéd but it’s so true!

A little bit of time now spent on developing a sensible and straightforward method for your filing the easier you will be able to lay your hands on exactly what you need in the future!

Remember, nowadays this doesn’t just apply to that enormous grey monster of a filing cabinet lovingly rescued from a skip and now stuffed in the corner of your office.  This also applies to your computer filing system!

So, clear that cluttered desktop! Create that series of files in a logical way so that not only you can find everything you want but be prepared for when your arts business expands to include new staff members.  You don’t want to have to spend the first few weeks explaining the ins and outs of your computer filing which only you and your crazy brain understand!

 

7.       An Understanding of Social Media

I know I have a habit of repeating this, but social media is taking over the world!  It is becoming increasingly more integral to the running of businesses everywhere!  It is therefore important that everyone in your company knows how to use it.

The good news here is that over half of being good at Social Media Marketing relies on having excellent administration ability including the facility to schedule. 

Remember without your admin team (be it an actual team or be it just you) all the things we achieve in the exciting world of the creative industries wouldn’t be possible.  You could even post about them on Social Media!  They might be filtering through what appears to be the mundane but it makes the magic happen!

 

8.       Time Saving with Customer Service

I find often that email can be one of the biggest time drainers.  On occasion I have sat down in the morning to view my email accounts and quite often, before I know it, it’s midday and feel like I have achieved nothing because all I have done is sit and reply to messages!  So here is my advice:

If you have to email provide the customer with everything they could possibly need and then some extra stuff just in case.  So much time is wasted on toing and froing in emails.  If your business has been around for a while then chances are you have already equated a list of F.A.Qs (Frequently Asked Questions).  This is like the administrators’ bible: the copy and paste email dream.  It makes responses easy to find and, if properly produced, looks as though it is a completely personalised response! Save hours of your time from a cheeky bit of admin at the beginning creating an FAQ database.

If you still find a lot of email back and forth just pick up the phone and ring!  It is generally more effective than the constant and relentless email mountain!  It also means you’re less likely to misinterpret information.  Always remember emails are devoid of emotion.  That means that people inflict whatever feeling they want on them which can lead to a whole host of problems that simply wouldn’t have happened if you picked up the phone.

 

9.       Graphic Design

People in Arts Organisations often spend an obscene amount of money on outsourcing their graphic design.  Often enough there are employees in the office who are not only more than capable of designing your print and online content but also know the ethos of the business far better than any external designer will. 

This will also help to keep all your content consistent with your company brand.  Bare minimum if you are an outsourcer make sure that you keep a branding document so that the designer can get it spot on first time without having to ask too many questions.

If you are looking for administration work, having some photoshop skills under your belt will help you to stand out from the crowd.  If you find photoshop tricky then there are loads of cheaper alternatives out there nowadays! Give Canva a try or stay old school with Microsoft Publisher, just make sure you know the basics.

 

10.       Organisation, organisation, organisation

This links into all of the skills I have mentioned but basically, without some top notch organisational ability the whole of you admin system is almost certainly doomed to fail!  So get on top of it by getting organised.

 

 

And there you have it!  Now, away you go off into the world of administration and smash it!

APP OF THE MONTH: Doodle

Posted Leave a commentPosted in Administration, App of the Month, Business Skills

 

Name Doodle
Product Description An online voting app designed to make scheduling meetings and events super easy as well as create online surveys and questionnaires.
Availability Only Available through your browser at https://doodle.com/ on the Apple App Store and from the Google Play Store.
Key Features ·         Schedule events and meetings, big or small across any calendar and platform quickly and easily

·         Ask questions by creating polls to send to your team and get them to vote for the most popular option

·         Sync most calendar apps with Doodle in order to avoid double bookings

·         Create and share your own Doodle URL to try and avoid that emailing to and fro

·         Send out multiple times to enable users to vote on their preferred one

·         New Doodle Dashboard keeps all your doodles in one place and makes them really easy to access

·         Auto-arrange reminders to go out prior to the meeting

·         With premium you can customise Doodle to be in keeping with your own company branding and receive advanced security

Prices and Plans It starts completely free to develop a basic poll! But they also have different business options for Doodle ranging from €3.50 per month for one business user to €12.50 per month for five.  Are you an even bigger business? Get in touch with Doodle to receive a quote!
Biggest Pro It’s basically like next level organisation without all the faff! That endless email back and forth and the accidental reply alls are more or less completely eliminated.
Biggest Con It is kind of limited, but to be honest, it’s the simplicity that makes it so brilliant.

Whether or not you use it for big corporate meet and greets or to find a weekend for that school reunion it really is the perfect little bit of software!

 

APP OF THE MONTH: ADOBE BRIDGE

Posted Leave a commentPosted in Administration, Business Skills
Name Adobe Bridge
Product Description A companion product to Adobe Photoshop designed for file management and cataloguing your digital photo collection
Availability Through Browser at https://creativecloud.adobe.com/apps/download/bridge
Key Features A Digital Assets Management (DAM) or Desktop Media Browser Programme allowing you store and sort your images professionally and easily on your desktop or laptop computer:

·         Highlight your favourite photos and hide the ones you don’t like as much

·         Add keywords to the metadata (basically background digital copy) of your photos to easily find the perfect image you need on search and improve your SEO if you upload your images online.

·         Upload your images directly through Bridge to have them automatically renamed to match your filing system.

·         Add Star ratings 1-5 to your images

·         Use the filter system to search through your images

·         Creating Collections (kind of like music playlists) to regroup your photos into different albums without creating doubles on your hard drive.

·         Preview your images without having to open them in another programme through numerous different ways.

·         Completely customisable workspace/dashboard so you can prioritise quick access to the features and files you use the most

Prices and Plans It is completely free regardless of whether you purchase the rest of the Creative Cloud from Adobe.
Biggest Pro It’s quick and easy freeing up a massive amount of time in the long run, making it easier to track your existing images.  It lowers the chance of losing or accidently deleting images.
Biggest Con At present they don’t have any ability to access the app from your phone which is where most people take majority of their pictures so their isn’t really an option to file your images on the go from your mobile.

 

Find the Perfect Idea to Start your Arts Business

Posted Leave a commentPosted in Business Skills, Creative Industries, Start Ups

Why Start an Arts Business?

 

It’s terrifying putting yourself out there and letting out your artistic endeavours in the world.

 

I hear excuses almost daily about why brilliant artists and entrepreneurs shouldn’t start businesses in the Creative Industries.  Generally, these people are amongst the most hard-working, inventive and organised individuals but they are scared of the risks often entailed with starting a new enterprise.

 

But, there are numerous reasons to set up a new arts business:

 

  • Creating (or manufacturing) new work (products or services) which can be seen and directly sold, whether that is a new piece of art for someone’s mantelpiece or a performance that you want to be seen by the right audiences.  This type of business can be taken directly to the customer.

 

  • The want to distribute others work – you could be a gallery owner, a receiving house, a fringe venue, a music academy, a poetry publisher, a producer, the list goes on.  You can take this work either straight to the audience or to other businesses so there are two avenues you can go down.

 

  • Running events or finding a product you think someone else will benefit from. Think your Theatre in Education (TIE), art workshops and school holiday activities.  Not for profit organisations or charities come with plenty of perks to like claiming Gift Aid on donations and the ability to claim back VAT.

 

  • Some people are simply on the lookout for business opportunities where an investment, either monetary help (funding or equipment) or through giving time and advice to help others start a business, or in many cases in the Arts run themselves as a business, is traded for a return on their outlays later.  This is the agents and producers of the industry or opportunities like residencies provided by galleries.

 

Most Arts Organisations start out in one of these categories and then quickly diversify in order to turn over profit to drive the main organisation aim. Once you have thought of your initial idea then you can branch out:

 

As an example think of a specialist antique shop that collect their stock and run their business in different ways:

  • Some stock they buy in from markets and sell on
  • Some shelves or sections they rent to clients and sell the stock on their behalf
  • Some products they display for free and split the profits with the owner
  • Some articles are faux vintage bought in new to sell on at a more substantial margin
  • Some items are handmade from recycled antiques
  • Some run a café alongside their shop
  • Some host specialist auctions at weekends
  • Some run courses to teach hobbyists more about antiques

You get the idea.  There are always multiple strings on their bow to help sustain their business and, more importantly, their passion.  So, think about your passion and how it can be funded.

 

Have you come up with your great idea but don’t know where to start?  Or maybe you’ve diversified your portfolio to fund your passion.  Tell us in the comments below!

APP OF THE MONTH: Etsy

Posted Leave a commentPosted in App of the Month, Business Skills, E-Commerse
Name Etsy
Product Description A specialised selling (e-commerce) platform/online shop tailored to vintage and handmade products and craft supplies.
Availability Through Browser at https://www.etsy.com/ and as an app especially designed for sellers from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store
Key Features Unique items sold by small, independent businesses and individuals worldwide through a secure payment system.

The app consists of:

·         A Dashboard in which you can easily see your Shop Overview and any News and Activity from your shop.

·         A Stats (or analytics) section to see your views and visits along with information of where your traffic is coming from and a list displaying the order of your best performing products.

·         An Orders tab where you can see both open and completed orders

·         Conversations (or messages) where you can talk to other members and customers – a great feature of this is that Etsy will save ‘Snippets’ or your personal commonly used phrases to add to your conversations.

·         A place to view listings, your shop, reviews and finances.

·         The ability to shout out about your shop items across all your Social Media Platforms.

·         Etsy Ads in which you can budget what to spend each day in order to rank higher in both Google and Etsy.

·         Links to educational videos and articles about how to get the best out of your Etsy store.

Prices and Plans The app itself is free.  To list an item on Etsy is $0.20 (which with the current exchange rate is around £0.17).  Your listings will be active on Etsy for 4 months or until that item is sold.  When sold Etsy will take a 5% commission and charge a processing payment of 4% plus £0.20 per transaction.  So, if you sell an item for £10.00 Etsy would receive around £1.27.

They now offer Etsy Plus for £8.30 a month which includes 15 free listings, £4.20 to spend on Etsy Ads, a custom web address, email stock alerts for customers and new personalisation options for your store.

Later in the year they will be launching ‘Etsy Premium’ although pricing plans a full spec are yet to be announced.

Biggest Pro Unlike Amazon and eBay on which you can buy anything and everything Etsy is specifically targeted towards sellers of vintage and handcrafted things meaning this is where designers and makers can find their target audience immediately.
Biggest Con Of course, this can also be a con as there is a lot of competition on Etsy.  There is also no way to ‘patent’ your ideas, so to speak, which means similar designs to yours may appear and there is little you can do about it.

 

What is Your Target Audience? The Checklist

Posted Leave a commentPosted in Business Skills, Marketing

Whenever I begin a marketing plan I always start with what the target audience is. Who exactly is this show or exhibition for?  And are there any products and merchandise I could develop to go with the it that my audience would also enjoy?

 

Earlier today whilst trying to figure out the target audience of a large-scale dance company I thought to myself, do you know what would be really useful? A checklist!

 

So here it is:

 

 

  1. Demographicsdefined as the statistical characteristics of the population, think about equal opportunities forms, basically everything you fill out on there relates to your personal demographic.  Obviously you don’t need to filter everyone of these down to one answer but you do need to consider each one.

 

  • Age – simply how old is the intended audience
  • Gender – Is your work more predominantly targeted towards men or women or unisex?
  • Sexuality – Heterosexual, homosexual or bisexual?
  • Marital status – Single, Widowed, Married, Separated, Divorced?
  • Nationality – not simply where they are from but how your audience refer to their nationality
  • Education – what level of education they have attended and what qualifications were obtained
  • Income – simply how much is earned whether weekly, monthly or annual.  You may also be interested in what kind of expendable income they have
  • Occupation – what is their job?
  • Religion
  • Social Class – working class, middle class, upper class.  I also like to include aspiring upper class.
  • Number of Children

 

 

  1. Geographics – pretty simply where the audience is located, but there is a little more to think about than that.

 

  • Location – where do they live?
  • Area Type – city centres to the middle of the countryside?  What is in their area? What amenities do they have access to?
  • Climate – what is the weather like there at a specific time of year? Particularly important when considering international touring.  Think about the temperature when your going.  Think about any potential extreme weather conditions.  This will prevent you touring an outdoor theatre show around India during monsoon season.
  • Cultural behaviours – What are the local laws? Are there any traditions to be respected? What is the culture like? I.e. Don’t take Magic Mike on tour to Morocco or Ru Paul’s Drag Race to Dubai.
  • Available resources – What do they have available? What kind of community spaces are there?  How do they live?  You’d be unlikely to take a piece revolved around telling stories on facetime to the Scottish Highlands where you wouldn’t be guaranteed mobile signal.

 

 

  1. Psychographics – This is where we begin to understand the target audience’s personal preferences, how are they living their life?

 

  • Lifestyle – how people live their lives
  • Interests – your target audience’s likes and dislikes
  • Hobbies – what do they enjoy doing in their spare time?
  • Beliefs – what are there politics? Left or Right wing? Are they environmentally conscious?
  • Personality – what they are like.  Introvert or extrovert? Analytical? Sociable? Relaxed? Easy going? Lover of Sarcasm? Bit of a hipster?

 

 

  1. Behavioural Patterns – this is analysis of the decision-making process which goes on when making purchases.

 

  • What do they buy and when?
  • How often?
  • What leads to purchasing decisions?
  • How do they use their purchases?
  • Responses and attitude to purchases

 

 

So now you have your checklist it’s easy to create a profile for your target audience:

 

Women aged 25-35 from UK educated to degree level (demographic), sociable extroverts who have a healthy lifestyle and like painting (psychographic) lives in 20 mile radius of Birmingham, West Midlands (geographic) and attends galleries and specialist exhibitions at least once a month, frequent theatre and cinema goers (behavioural)

 

You’ll soon discover with a detailed checklist like this one it’ll be much easier to create bespoke marketing campaigns tailored to appeal to the exact group you’re looking for!  Why not give it a go? Let me know what your next project is and who you think your target audience is.

 

If you think I’ve missed anything then let me know in the comments below and I’ll update as necessary!