As I mentioned quite a few times here, our artist spotlight has been hugely successful. Artists from all over the world have been filling out the interview questions for our spotlight questionnaire. We have had artists from all genres of art featured here already, including photographers, painters, sculptors, digital artists, and more.
Today I will explain how you can set up an artist spotlight at your own website or blog.
For creating an artist spotlight, the best and easiest way to receive submissions is to create an online contact form.
Emailmeform.com is the one we use, and it’s free! The entire form or survey can be created online in an easy to use drag and drop interface without even having to know anything about html. Users can log into the form builder anytime and update it. This form can have a variety of uses, including polls and surveys. I will keep it simple by showing you the basics of Emailme form builder in this tutorial.
How to Create an Artist Spotlight with EmailMeForm.com
Go to Emailme Form and click the big orange button, Signup Now for Free. When completed the signup process, log into your account, and click the +Add Form button in the upper right corner.
- Choose option #2 to go to the Emailmeform builder.
- Now, if you proceed to the spotlight form at Artpromotivate, you will see how everything is organized. The first 7 boxes are created using the Single Line Text button.
Hit this, and a box will appear at the right, and a preview of the form is displayed. This button can be clicked multiple times, depending on the number of form boxes you needed.
Click on a Single Line Text box on the right. To the left will appear a box to enter text, under Field Label.
Check Required under options if you want this as a required box to fill out.
The only other section here that may need attention is Instructions for User. Enter extra information here that will help the user fill out the form.
- Click the form title at the top to write a title and description for your online contact form.
- For the questions, we will use Paragraph Text found under the Add Field tab. Go through the same procedure as you did with the Single Line Text.
The final section of your form should include buttons to upload files. Under the advanced section on the left, click File Upload. Enter a title and instructions for the user as you did in the previous steps. You may want to include a file size limit here as well.
- This is a very basic contact form on the right. There are may other options here you may play around with to create a unique form of your own.
- The next step is to click on the Form Settings tab. Adjust Confirmation options to either show text or a redirect URL. The redirect URL will send the user to a specific page (preferably a thank-you page) after submitting the form. For bloggers, simply create a thank-you page by creating a new post, and selecting a past publishing date (ie two months ago).
Under the Send button name box, change “Send Email” to “Submit”, and align it to the right.
- Change the Anti-spam option to “none”. I do not use the captcha option, and to date have not received any spam!
- Click the Save Form button. A popup appears, and choose the second option Modify email notifications for this form. Fill in a recipient email, one that you use often.
- Click Save and choose the third option Take me back to the form manager.
Hit Code at the top, then choose the Html only option. Enter the URL at the top where the form is to be embedded. If that page is not created yet, go ahead an create one now. For bloggers, create a new post, and copy the URL into the box.
- Copy and paste the HTML coding wherever you want it placed in your website or blog. For bloggers, be sure to copy it in html mode, then hit publish. Do not switch to the post editor, as this will collapse the form.
Go to 
Check Required under options if you want this as a required box to fill out. 
The final section of your form should include buttons to upload files. Under the advanced section on the left, click File Upload. Enter a title and instructions for the user as you did in the previous steps. You may want to include a file size limit here as well. 
Under the Send button name box, change “Send Email” to “Submit”, and align it to the right. 
Hit Code at the top, then choose the Html only option. Enter the URL at the top where the form is to be embedded. If that page is not created yet, go ahead an create one now. For bloggers, create a new post, and copy the URL into the box.
If you have any questions, or need any assistance with creating an online contact form with Emailme Form builder, feel free to leave a comment below.
Thank-you for reading, and if you enjoyed this post, maybe you will enjoy reading a couple other tutorials at Artpromotivate:
How to Make a Free Artist Logo
How to Self-Publish an Art Portfolio Book
Hello Graham,
ReplyDeleteI have tried to create a form in order to promote the artists I like, but I don't know what I'm doing wrong !! I have done an E-mail me Form, with a nice theme, went to HTML Only page, copied the code, pasted it into a new post (without switching from the 'html'editing mode), and it still doesn't appear as a form ! Do you have any idea what I missed doing ?
here's the link I'm trying to fix :http://maiastefanaoprea.wordpress.com/2012/06/02/271/?preview=true&preview_id=271&preview_nonce=f00cfe2d60
Thank you so much,
your efforts are much appreciated.
@Maia Oprea
ReplyDeleteHi Maia,
Click view on your main menu (third button from the left) to see how your form looks in your web browser. If everything is ok, click Code and select HTML with Javascript/CSS instead of HTML only.
Let me know if you need any more help.