Button Xchanges Free Graphics for My Artist Friends

Last night, while uncluttering my favourites i was revisiting this post - Living the creative Dream
This inspiring story is about a woman who decided she wanted to become an illustrator and it details her steps she took in order to reach her goal ( i have blogged about this before). In this article she talks about self promotion and some of the steps she took to trying to get work, one of the things which she talks highly about is link exchanges.

Recently I have been increasingly aware of just how people are getting to my blog and my website, and I am often curious enough to be logging into the stat counter just to see where all of my readers are coming from. I have been pleasantly surprised to discover that many of my new readers arrive here from many of the links that my generous fellow bloggers have on their blogs.

I have also become more aware that:
- other artists are also interested in having their own links on my site and this is a good thing as what goes around come around
- some people like to spruce up their blog a bit and have pretty graphics :)
- normal text links tend to get lost on pages where there are many many many links on a page
- i probably should be doing a bit more for self promotion for myself if i expect to sell any artwork

So i decided to:
1. Create my own button Xchange area which is purely for the purpose of xchanging links with other sites with the aim that other artists will put me on their page if they are on mine. :) You can see it on the on the right under "Button Xchange", i know i already have a links area but this tends to be more about artists i read regularly rather than an xchange type scenario
2. Create my own "button" for artists to add my button to their blog or site if they so wish, cause they look attractive and ppl will click on them :)
3. Seeing as i am a web designer creating buttons is pretty easy for me, but i totally understand that its not for everyone so i am going to offer:
FREE Button Graphics for my artist friends
(with a couple of conditions)

So, if you are one of my regular readers and you would like your own button to put on your own website for others to link for you i will make one for you with a couple of conditions.

Conditions:
1. You have to be either an artist or illustrator or designer
2. You must have a link to either my blog or website on your blog or website (doesn't have to be my button at a minimum has to be a text link)
3. You have to put your button on your own website or holding area like flickr i am not hosting it as well :)
4. So far i am doing two sizes 80X15 pixels and a 145 X 25 pixels graphics, i will consider doing a different size if a few people are after them but these two seem to be the default sizes i can find. Obviously these are only small so if you have a long name like mine be aware that its going to look squashed but i will do everything i can to make it as legible as possible.
5. I will look at your website / blog to tailor the colours or graphics to best suit your style if you have a particular colour or icon or graphic that you would like to use (that you own the copyright on) then i am happy to do it, BUT you have to tell me before i do it not after i don't like doing lots of piddly changes :)
6. I will do my utmost to do it ASAP for you but i have a small business, lots of cleaning, art and two small children to look after so please be patient with me :)
Thats it :)

So, if you are interested add my link to your site then email me with your url, your name, the text you want to have on the button, as well as any preference for colours or icons or graphics and i will email you a button back for you to do with as you wish. I will also give you the code to edit which you can put on your website for others to link to you. Sounds too easy doesn't it.