Copy Examples

Tagline ideas for artists

A tagline earns its place by saying the one thing you want remembered. Ten angles here, not ten rewordings of one.

Ten of them follow, written for artists rather than filled in from a template. Your customer is a collector, a curator or someone who has just fallen for one piece, and what they are weighing up before they get in touch is buying work they will not still like in five years, from someone who may not still be making it.

The service, plainly

Original paintings in [your town].

Use this when people search for the service by name and you just need to confirm they are in the right place.

The promise

I tell you what a piece is, what it costs and when it is available.

Use this when the commercial promise is the thing that wins the job.

Reliability

The artist who writes about the work in plain language.

Use this if doing the basic thing consistently is genuinely rare in your trade.

Credential

An exhibiting artist. [Your town].

Use this where the licence or registration does the persuading.

Local

The artist [your town] keeps recommending.

Use this when you serve one area and intend to keep serving it.

The worry, named

I show where the work has been exhibited — every time.

Use this when your whole market has the same fear and nobody says it out loud.

The differentiator

Saying what the work is actually about without reaching for art-speak.

Use this when you can name the standard you hold in a few words.

Specialist

Original paintings. That is the whole list.

Use this if you have narrowed deliberately. It reads as confidence.

For the customer

For a collector, a curator or someone who has just fallen for one piece.

Use this when naming who it is for does more work than naming what it is.

The invitation

A note about the piece you are looking at, or a studio visit if you are nearby.

Use this where the tagline sits directly above a button.

Writing for artists: what actually matters

What should an artist’s website say that a generic one does not?

Three things, in this order. That you are exhibiting and collected. That you understand the thing people are actually worried about, which for artists is buying work they will not still like in five years, from someone who may not still be making it. And what happens next: a note about the piece you are looking at, or a studio visit if you are nearby. Everything else on the page is decoration by comparison.

What does a collector, a curator or someone who has just fallen for one piece check first?

The credential, then the proof. For artists it sounds like this. I show where the work has been exhibited. I say what the work is made of and at what scale. I keep prices and availability visible. Put at least one of those above the fold rather than on a separate page nobody opens.

What is the most common mistake on an artist’s website?

Writing about the business instead of the customer. "We have been established since 1998" answers a question nobody asked. "I start with a note about the piece you are looking at, or a studio visit if you are nearby" answers the one they are actually holding. If you only fix one thing, fix that.

How long should the copy be?

Shorter than you think, except where trust is being built. An About page of 120 well-chosen words beats 500 vague ones. The exception is anything explaining buying work they will not still like in five years, from someone who may not still be making it — there, specifics earn their length.

Everything else for artists

Tagline for other trades

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