Site of the Day: Ceramic Art Directory

This review has been updated. View the new Claystation: Site of the Day post.

Ceramic Art Directory (claystation.com)

Quick Facts

• Address: www.claystation.com
• Produced By: Andy Clift
• Domain Name Registered: May 4, 1999
• Alexa Rank (?): Approx. 800,000
• Inbound Links (?): Approx. 170

Overview

Claystation Home Page

The Ceramic Art Directory, also known as Clay Station, is a large collection of links, resources, galleries and more.  As of this posting, it seems to be in the midst of a transformation.  The home page and most of the other sections of the site currently have the same look that you have come to love in the past: a color scheme of browns and light blue, the clay-lump main navigation at the top with secondary navigation underneath, and a white middle column with smaller columns at each side.  If you click on the classified or  forum “lump” in the navigation you will see a slick new layout of blues and white with many new features.  If you’re interested, here’s Andy’s note about the new version.  This new version should offer many improvements and allow some interesting interaction between potters, ceramic artists, and fans of clay.

Features

• The site is built with vBulletin, a powerful and feature-rich piece of software designed to build communities.
• High user interaction – many tools to express your thoughts and interact with other ceramic artists.
• Forum – a place to discuss with other potters and ceramic artists including sub-forums like Clay and Glaze, Kilns and Firing, Forming Techniques and more.
• Links – a wide variety of ceramic and pottery links sorted into categories in a complex hierarchy.
• Opportunities – an interactive section where jobs, classes, conferences and other clay related events can be posted.
• Classifieds – an advanced system to post, browse and search for anything clay-related that can be sold.
• Blogs – visitors can sign up and manage their own blog as part of the Claystation community.
• Claypedia – a Wikipedia style collection of ceramic information which can be edited by any registered user.
• Claystation TV – a nice collection of pottery and ceramic art videos.
• Book Store – find and order pottery and ceramic art books through Amazon.com. Books are categorized and can be sorted by best selling, newest, or most noteworthy.
• RSS feeds – there is an RSS feed for just about every feature of the site including links, forums, and articles.

Claystation Community Page

Final Thoughts (?)

• Content Quantity:  B (a large amount of ceramic/pottery links, some articles, the Claypedia, and other community based content.)
• Content Quality:  B- (some good articles, videos, etc. but the links to other sites are one of the more important aspects for those searching for information.)
• Navigation:  C+/B+ (The old version took some getting used to.  New layout is more intuitive and easier to find information.)
• Presentation: B-/A-  (The old version was a little cluttered and somewhat confusing at first glance.  New version seems really clean and polished but still gives you a lot of information at once.  Some ads but nothing too annoying.)
• Interaction: A- (There is an amazing amount of interactive features: forums, blogs, community – but not a lot of people to interact with.)

Overall:  B