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Web Design for Bands


toby316624

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Everyones myspace and facebook page pretty much looks the same. Yes you can change the background and all of that other tacky shit, but social networking sites dont allow for your customisation to enhance the core design of the website. What i am trying to say is, you can customise a myspace page till the cows come home, but at the end of the day it is still a myspace page with myspace layout and no one has control over that. Having your own band page lets you take control of not only the simple customisable aspects of a page but also the core layout and the general way that the page is set up. This can lead to an overall better experience for a user accessing the bands page. Everything looks more integrated if its all designed together.

As for cms, obviously a cms would cost alot more money, but i feel by working closely with the bands, there are other simple methods of updating the websites.

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I'm well aware of plenty of people/bands who use Myspace but don't really dig what it is doing to the obsessive, lazy users of it. It seems almost unavoidable if you want people to hear your band these days. I admitted the hypocrisy in using it, but it doesn't mean I have to like it. I take when I need from it. Plenty of others form an unhealthy lazy reliance upon it which would probably kill their band dead if it was ever taken away.

But yes. You carry on with your "BUT YOU CAN HAVE A MYSPACE FOR FREE" ramblings. I'm sure without your precious insight, no one would have known this, and we'd have all been slogging away in Microsoft Frontpage until the unholy hours trying to get a scrolling marquee or a dancing baby to work.

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It seems almost unavoidable if you want people to hear your band these days.
And whats the whole point in a bands web-site? To hear the band surely. You said it yourself. It works, why argue?

Don't like it. But at the end of the day, you're going to use it. So ramble on and on about not liking it.

I can see why Toby wants to maybe make a bit of money, and probably get alot of practice out of designing web-sites for bands. I'd do the same, if I didn't think it was completely futile.

As for the whole "DIY bands of the past would be sick / the scene would be useless without it"; thats just bollocks. DIY bands would continue as they always have, but networking has always been core to the bands getting out there, and myspace/facebook/whatever has simply made this easier on a whole, meaning bigger and better tours, releases, collaborations within the DIY scene. So continue ranting, saying its shit etc etc. "this band are good, but their web-site looks like everyone elses." You should probably stop going to gigs if the band has a myspace. Make a stand. Lets get back to the 90s, where men were men and Royal Mail made a few more pennies. Yas.

"Thats one hell of a tour you guys are doing!"

"Yeah man, We met alot fo promotoers and labels on myspace. Everything was easy to organise"

"Myspace? You lasy shit. Back in the days we had to send morse code on toilet paper"

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As for the whole "DIY bands of the past would be sick / the scene would be useless without it"; thats just bollocks. DIY bands would continue as they always have.

I really doubt they would, but none of us can prove that. Through myspace seems to be how so many bands get their shows that aren't being put on by their mates or their their mates band. The bands that rely on it so much wouldn't know what to do with themselves. As for older DIY bands comment, my point on that was taken directly from the opinions of old Leeds bands from years gone by - from how they released their own material and produced all their own packaging being compared to how a bunch of kids can rip a bunch of mp3's and put them in a zip file or whack it on iTunes and call it 'self released'.

You seem to be misconstruing my point into being pro-website and anti-myspace when really I don't care for either. In addition to what I've said, the fact that everything is charted by a number (of plays, downloads, friends) makes it all so much more superficial than it needs to be.

I don't even care. It's just a website.

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I really doubt they would, but none of us can prove that. Through myspace seems to be how so many bands get their shows that aren't being put on by their mates or their their mates band. The bands that rely on it so much wouldn't know what to do with themselves. As for older DIY bands comment, my point on that was taken directly from the opinions of old Leeds bands from years gone by - from how they released their own material and produced all their own packaging being compared to how a bunch of kids can rip a bunch of mp3's and put them in a zip file or whack it on iTunes and call it 'self released'.
These "old Leeds bands from years gone by" sound like a bunch of geriatrich's akin to an old rocker sitting speaking to his gandkids saying "I was in a band, we were very good, do you want ot hear our record?"

All the old DIY bands I know that were doing euro tours in the 80s and 90s all use myspace. And say it helps cos it makes things alot fucking easier.

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I'm with 'Bags on this one. I personally don't see the point of a band having anything other than a myspace unless they are a huge band.

Yup, completely agree. Take the web site design factor out of the equation and think about the size of the potential audience that will discover your site. If you get your own web site put together then you have to make sure it's indexed by the likes of Google, Yahoo etc so people can actually find it in the first place. The likes of MySpace and Bebo do this automatically and they do it well (how often is a band's MySpace site the first result returned by Google even over their own web site?).

If you're a big signed band with an already established fan base then yes, there are advantages to having your own site (the consistent look and feel, online store to sell your merch, control over advertising, downloads etc). But for everyone else, just put a MySpace page up. Even if they all mostly look god-awful. :p

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As for cms, obviously a cms would cost alot more money, but i feel by working closely with the bands, there are other simple methods of updating the websites.

That's not true now I'd say. There is plenty of CMS and WCM systems that are open-source and can be easily deployed. Wordpress is one that instantly comes to mind - that literally takes 5 minutes to install once you have your web hosing sorted out.

I moved to my blog onto Wordpress last weekend and after a few hours this is what I had to show: existentia

And no, I'm certainly no web designer. The design I used is a freely available template of which there is thousands to choose from.

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That's not true now I'd say. There is plenty of CMS and WCM systems that are open-source and can be easily deployed. Wordpress is one that instantly comes to mind - that literally takes 5 minutes to install once you have your web hosing sorted out.

I moved to my blog onto Wordpress last weekend and after a few hours this is what I had to show: existentia

And no, I'm certainly no web designer. The design I used is a freely available template of which there is thousands to choose from.

Thanks Neil - just the job!

I was looking for something just like this for our band's website.

Who do you use for hosting?

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Who do you use for hosting?

I use FutureQuest who I've had a working relationship with for years now (they host this web site as well funnily enough). I can get you a discounted rate with them, but there is cheaper web hosts out there and you might want to look at European based web hosts instead (they are based in Florida) now the pound is so weak against the dollar.

I think 1&1 is still pretty cheap and cheerful.

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I use FutureQuest who I've had a working relationship with for years now (they host this web site as well funnily enough). I can get you a discounted rate with them, but there is cheaper web hosts out there and you might want to look at European based web hosts instead (they are based in Florida) now the pound is so weak against the dollar.

I think 1&1 is still pretty cheap and cheerful.

Cool - might take you up on that!

I've used HostGator in the States before, when I developed a internet shop for a friend (PHP) and they were excellent.

However, that was 3 yers ago and as you well know, my technical skills have eroded beyond repair :laughing:

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Neil, any pointers on setting up Wordpress? I've got a site up and running but it's just getting it to work the way I want I'm having trouble with. Blog posts, fine with that, but it's the other pages etc...

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Yeah, you're right. This guy was pretty idiotic to offer a service to see if anyone would be interested. Whilst we're at it, I hate just about everything that Woolworths sells. I'm probably going to drop in at some point, kick over some shelves and promotional stands and yell "THIS IS POINTLESS. IT'S CHEAPER IN POUNDLAND AND IT'S ON UNION STREET SO EVERYONE KNOWS WHERE IT IS!"

Retail riots.

"You must spread some reputation around before giving it to Original Spies again"

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Some interesting views on here. Domain names and hosting are as cheap as chips now so no harm in registering and uploading some basic info pages at least, as well as having a myspace. (I have webspace on Claranet, 1and1 and Tame The Web).

One thing with myspace, is the almost compulsary `instant music` that occurs when visiting a myspace site nowadays, which may be a pain for those at work or in company.

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Neil, any pointers on setting up Wordpress? I've got a site up and running but it's just getting it to work the way I want I'm having trouble with. Blog posts, fine with that, but it's the other pages etc...

It should be pretty straightforward. You can see from the admin pages that you can create new "Pages" which you can then put content in either just as would a blog post or raw HTML if you want it to do something specific. You can even embed PHP code if you want it to do something clever. It's then a case of linking to those pages from within the site which you can do by customising the theme you are using in the Design area of the admin pages.

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I might be off my head here, but why dont you, instead of doing website design for bands, do custom myspace design for bands? I know, Im crazy...

Not crazy at all. Plenty of people make money from that either by selling their design services in exactly that way or by developing software that aids the MySpace page design process (I'm sure you've all seen the "MySpace page designed by such and such software" stamped over various pages).

And the argument that you can only customise MySpace pages so much is losing weight now. Some MySpace pages look very professional and entirely unlike the rest of MySpace:

MySpace.com - Jimmy Eat World - Mesa, ARIZONA - Rock / Alternative - www.myspace.com/jimmyeatworld

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Not crazy at all. Plenty of people make money from that either by selling their design services in exactly that way or by developing software that aids the MySpace page design process (I'm sure you've all seen the "MySpace page designed by such and such software" stamped over various pages).

And the argument that you can only customise MySpace pages so much is losing weight now. Some MySpace pages look very professional and entirely unlike the rest of MySpace:

MySpace.com - Jimmy Eat World - Mesa, ARIZONA - Rock / Alternative - www.myspace.com/jimmyeatworld

I also give you:

MySpace.com - N*E*R*D - Virginia Beach, Virginia - Alternative / Hip Hop / Rock - www.myspace.com/nerdofficial

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