The first portion of my research involved the stalking of many of my favorite Instagram illustrators. Although Instagram opens up countless opportunities for people in many different fields, the majority of freelance illustrators use Instagram to increase view count and fan base in hopes of selling prints and other merchandise.
When inputting their names into Google Search however, many of my favorite Instagram illustrators, while having a huge following on Instagram, failed to have a proper website with their own domain. Although the majority of artists that I searched didn’t have a website at all, the majority of the ones that did used third party websites such as tumblr.
After coming to this deduction, it occurred to me that we had different goals for a website. Since most of them were already successful on Instagram, they don’t place a heavy investment on their websites mainly because they were mostly using it as a way to generate income; selling prints and merchandise already advertised on their Instagram. Most people that visit their sites are already fans and are just looking to buy prints.
