Name of your website?Quill Skill: Inspirational Calligraphy by Denis Brown
Your name?
Denis Brown
Your Location (city, etc)
Dublin
Please give us a short summary of your website?
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My site is all about my calligraphy and related art, with galleries and information of both traditional and avant garde western calligraphy, including work on paper, calfskin vellum, and my personal way of layering writing in glass to make 3-D 'text'ures. There are also some movies, worksheets, desktop wallpapers and purchase information for edition prints and original art.
What was your first website?
My first website was a college assignment on a music technology course here in Dublin. That was a music based site, but I immediately realized I could use a site to promote my calligraphy also.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
I discovered that DenisBrown.com was not available, so I took out pencil & paper and jotted down as many possible names I could imagine. "Quill Skill" seemed the most catchy, and I like that, without any word-space in the URL, it could also be read "Quills Kill".
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What makes it different from other, similar offerings?
Much, much higher quality calligraphy; many more unique and experimental approaches; higher quality images and photos shown at larger size and higher resolution; more in depth info and background stories about works shown; inspirational movies and better design than most calligraphy sites. (But otherwise I guess its the same as the rest of the mediocrity out there ;-)
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
I enjoy the process of updating the site; & keeping fans and collectors informed about developments in my work. I'd like to keep it largely this way, though I do have hopes to eventually market and sell a range of educational DVDs from the site, or from a sister site.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
It is a large investment of time, but I'm lucky to be able to make a living of what is also my passion, so I don't count costs for a lot of the work. Most of my art sales now derive to some degree from interaction with my site in one way or another. I have had some direct sales of expensive works to people I didn't know, but more typically potential buyers who know me from a conference, an exhibit or a workshop in the past can keep up to date; and people like that often get in touch when they are ready to enquire about purchasing an original work.
What type of people visit your site? Who is your target audience?
That's an interesting question, since site statistics can't tell you about personalities of who is visiting! The viewers are certainly international- a huge range of countries are represented in the pie-charts! Naturally other calligraphers visit a lot- practitioners can best appreciate technical aspects of my skills and I have a lot of fans. But that can't possibly account for the high volumes of traffic. I do know that one of my most hit pages is based on keyword optimization for the search string "Old English Calligraphy Alphabet". This is a term only a real beginner of calligraphy would use, but I discovered it was a common search phrase on search engines, so made a page to target that in an honest way. So I guess I get a fair bit of traffic from people just starting to explore calligraphy. But ANYONE interested in exciting visual art will enjoy what's on offer. When I give lectures, often a spouse or partner is dragged along expecting a dull evening; but many such partners have thanked me warmly after the lecture, with a visible glint of inspiration in their eye. That is most gratifying; I'd love to think the website can sometimes do the same!
What is your website address?
Quill Skill: Inspirational Calligraphy by Denis Brown
