Evaluation of Artists' Self Promotion Strategies: Blu

I am looking at 3 Illustrator's websites to evaluate and compare their strategies of self-promotion: ie. how they sell their work, how they make themselves available for contact, how they present themselves and their styles.

Firstly I am looking at Blu, who is an illustrator, street artist and animator, and is someone who i am personally very inspired and influenced by. I doubt that he really needs as much self promotion as some artists as he is already fairly well known and therefore probably sufficiently well off that he doesn't have to advertise for work etc.

This is the front page of his website, designed to look and work like a sketchbook. Its unique and interesting presentation sets Blu's website apart from most others. It has a tactile layout which is exciting to use and fairly easily to navigate.

The home page here has links to contact info, pictures of his work and animation videos, his blog, and shops that sell his work. As well as this it advertises the sale of his new DVD. I imagine that Blu makes a fair amount of money from sales of his pictures and images, although i would guess that this income is a sideline in comparison to commissions. There is little information about what commissions he has done, which might be an area for improvement as potential clients might be interested to know this.

The page with his contact details on is simply scribble of an email address. He can probably get away with this as he is likely to have agents that book work for him and organise his affairs. This highlights the difference between a successful artists, and those who are still working to become recognised. For up and coming artists self promotion would play a much more valuable role in keeping a steady income, and therefore the presentation of their website would be very carefully considered.

He does not have a shop on his actual website, instead links to websites such as the picture above, which sell his work for him. Altogether I would describe Blu's website as very informal, which suits his style of work perfectly and is a luxury he can afford now that he is a successful artist.

http://www.blublu.org/