Building a Digital Home for Louise Soale: From Portfolio to Professional Online Presence
When artist Louise Soale approached me about creating her first website, her goal was clear: a digital space that not only showcased her fine art practice with polish and clarity, but also helped grow her commissions and make it easier to sell work directly. Like many artists, she had built a strong body of work and community offline, but was now ready to extend that presence online with a website that could work just as hard as she does.
Louise wanted a website that felt like a natural extension of her practice: soft, organic, and painterly, but also professional enough to approach galleries, secure exhibitions, and take on bespoke commissions, including weddings.
This wasn’t just about getting online, it was about doing it properly.
Designing Around Real-World Constraints
Like many independent creatives, Louise didn’t have a bank of high-end photography or a content plan in place. And, understandably, hiring a photographer or writer wasn’t feasible. That meant one of the big challenges in this project was content generation, both text and image. It was a stop-start process, with Louise fitting it in between teaching and making work, and it took time to gather everything.
Rather than rushing it, I gave her space to pull the content together at her own pace, while staying in touch and moving the structural design forward in the background.
Image Quality & Editing
While the images Louise supplied weren’t all professional-grade, the work itself was beautiful, richly textured, atmospheric, and filled with tone. To get the most out of what we had, I worked with the images directly in Photoshop: improving contrast, rebalancing colour, and cropping smartly to create impact. Banner images and full-screen hero sections were carefully edited to feel intentional and immersive.
A Website Built to Support Growth
The site was built in WordPress using Elementor Pro, with WooCommerce powering a simple but effective e-commerce setup. This allowed for:
A clean, professional portfolio design, led by high-impact visuals and a minimal interface
Clear signposting to different areas of Louise’s practice: personal work, commissions, exhibitions, and collaborations
A custom commissions page outlining her process for bespoke pieces, weddings, and more
An integrated online store, built using WooCommerce and styled to match the site’s overall aesthetic
Responsive design optimised for mobile, where many gallery curators, collaborators, and art buyers are likely to browse first
From “I need a site” to “This feels like me”
While there were challenges along the way, this project was a lovely example of how taking the time to do things properly really pays off. Louise now has a website she feels proud of – one that feels aligned with her work and capable of helping her take the next step professionally.
