Modern art has long migrated to the Internet, and for creative people who are trying to get their ideas across in any field, a lot of specialized resources have been created. One of these is a kind of Behance network. What kind of community is this, many Internet surfers simply do not know. Let's try to find out why this network was created and how a novice user can get the maximum benefit from its use to promote their work.
Behance: what is it?
So, let's start with the fact that this network was initially created as a specialized resource for computer artists and designers of any level of training who could not imagine their existence without the constant realization of a creative flight of thought, which ultimately translates into their work. The first mention of a resource for creating their own art galleries Behance.net Gallery dates back to 2006. The development of this network was very rapid, which led to the fact that by 2012 it was purchased by Adobe, and then began to be included in the Creative Cloud. After that, it became possible to upload your creations even on the professional version of the ProSite resource (of course, with registration) directly from Adobe applications and provide access to them from the cloud.
Register and set up your own page
All this seems to be quite simple, however, to achieve maximum return when promoting their projects on Behance, many experts recommend using some tricks that allow you to use absolutely all the resources of the resource. The first step is to go through a simple registration. To do this, you can use the galleries resource directly or register when you go to the corresponding Adobe website. On the first site, you can also use the login using AdobeID, if you already assigned such an identifier in the process of creating an account specifically for Adobe services.
Since the resource www.behance.net (Gallery) has a close connection with the social network Facebook, you can enter through such registration. As another login option, you can use your account on Google services.
If you want to create a new registration, independent of existing accounts, registration can be done when creating a new “account” with subsequent confirmation by e-mail (in this case, redirecting will be done just to the Adobe resource). The initial application contains only a few fields in which you should enter a brief information about yourself. There should be no questions.
Portfolio
Upon completion of all the steps, you will be asked to select one of the preferred categories and create a custom channel.
Please note that this does not apply only to the chart. With equal success, you can choose the category "Sound", which may interest many computer musicians. Now is the time to use the "Portfolio" section. Behance immediately offers a choice of several themes, but this is not the main thing.
The very first recommendation from most experts is to lay out in this section not everything that you have available, but only the best works that can show you from the most favorable side. At the same time, you can add projects to the sections Lightroom, Gallery, create a new page in the Page section or specify links to external resources with your work (Link).
When choosing a page theme, pay special attention to ensuring that your work does not merge with the background, but stand out on it, focusing the attention of visitors on specific projects.
Tips for posting your work at Behance Gallery
Now some tips for posting the main content. For example, you have chosen the Behance Design design section for yourself. Immediately pay attention to the moment that many visitors to your page may not be interested in looking at the final finished projects. Therefore, it is better to lay out those projects that are still under development. The creative process of creation itself with a step-by-step description of a project may be more interested in the audience.
To do this, you can use the special section Work In Progress (work in progress). Also, your chances of successful promotion of your work will be significantly enhanced by the addition of video tutorials, which will show how you create one form or another, use the capabilities of a program, etc.
In addition, when it comes to graphics, with normal registration you can only post images with a maximum width of 600 pixels. Thus, if the picture is larger, it is better to crop it, highlighting the most interesting area with the smallest details.
Statistics
Talking about the Behance service itself (what it is and what opportunities it offers to all registered participants), one cannot ignore the tracking of statistics on visits to your page. In general, this applies to evaluations of projects you have created. Despite the fact that comments can look rather poorly (and some users, and even purely for moral reasons, may not say anything just because your work did not interest them), you can still to some extent evaluate whether the direction of activity is chosen correctly and how popular it is one or another project.
Communication with other social networks and advertising
As already understood, it is hard to imagine that this creative Internet laboratory exists on its own. It also looks completely natural that it is associated with many other resources, for example, in the form of the same social networks. In addition, you can add external pages with your creations from almost any source, including, say, SoundCloud, Vimeo, YouTube, Flickr Photostream, etc.
Many experts in the field of “promotion” recommend using the same social networks more often by placing ads and links to their works on the Behance resource in them. This can increase their popularity quite strongly. It’s also sometimes advisable to even like yourself! Such a "self-promotion" can be a very effective means of attracting potential visitors.
Interaction with other authors
One more tip when posting your own projects: try to involve as many other users or people who are engaged in your chosen art form in the creative process. This will help to promote your work, and in the case of cooperation with well-known agencies, studios and creative personalities will add credibility to you. Feel free to evaluate the work of other authors. As practice shows, your flattering review of someone else's project may not leave indifferent its author, and he will want to see what exactly you are doing. A subscription to the works of other authors, as well as joining curated galleries (Curated Galleries), also looks good.
Using mobile apps
Finally, to keep abreast of all events or simply have access to the service anytime, anywhere, install a mobile application on your smartphone or tablet.
There are two of them today: The Behance mobile app and The Creative portfolio app. With their help, you can not only follow all the events, but also send your work if necessary to clients.
Additional services and features
This is a general outline of the Behance service. What is it, probably many have already understood. As a final addition, it’s worth adding that sometimes it’s advisable to use registration on the Behance ProSite professional resource.
Its capabilities will add to you a very good tool kit, which will be useful in future work, and will also help bring your portfolio to a higher level. Among all that will become available after paid registration, you can separately single out unlimited traffic, a set of tools for editing your work based on CSS / HTML, support for many TypeKit fonts, downloading full-size images without any restrictions, domain binding and synchronization with WordPress or Tumblr, optimizing projects for SEO, using Google Analytics and much more.
But in general, you can use this unique service of its kind in almost all known areas of art, because, as already clear, graphics and design are not limited to business, although you can to some extent call these areas priority. Of course, if you are just taking the first steps in mastering this service, you do not have to immediately switch to using its professional version. For the first time, normal registration is enough. But when you get a little comfortable, get fans, fans or customers, then you can go to a higher level. By the way, when using this service, as evidenced by the reviews of many users, you can also hone your own skill well by looking at how other people work and create masterpieces that are popular or most in demand among visitors.