"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
-Antoine de Saint-Exupery
-Antoine de Saint-Exupery
I review many email newsletters on a daily basis, most created by non-designers.
The number one mistake? More is not more.
Simple does not mean unattractive, it means...well, simple. Think iPod - simple and professional.
Fewer Colors, not more
The single biggest mistake by amateur designers is to use too many colors. Don't do it.
Pick 2 or 3 colors based on your logo and use a white background. Why white? Because some email programs won't display that nifty dark background. So your white text on a dark background just became white text on a white background. Not so readable.
Also, use colors to distinguish patterns such as one color for article titles and another for subtitles. People scan emails and color can help them scan - if used properly.
Images that do something
Don't use images just to add pizzaz. Images should be important enough to be links to something, not just artwork. Every image should be a link. (Note: You should also plan that your subscriber will have images turned off, so don't rely on images solely.)
Less fonts
This means not only less fonts (tahoma, verdana, helvetica, arial, etc), but also less font sizes. The standard email newsletter can get by with 3 font sizes: one for article headings, one for sub headings, and another size for the content. A fourth font size can be utilized for the fine print.
Easy on the CSS
Emails aren't web pages. You can't be certain how your HTML will be displayed when using CSS because there are so many programs used to read emails. Old school HTML (font tags, tables, bgcolor) is much more predictable. Uncool, but predictable.
Provide a link to a web version
At the top of the email provide a link to a web page version of the newsletter. Browsers are much better at displaying HTML compared with email programs.
Benefits of simple designs
- Take less time to create and edit and zero time to debug in different email clients
- Displayed more consistently than "fancy" designs. Your brand suffers when the email newsletter you sent is hacked to pieces in a subscriber's email software.
- Clean and simple copy/design is easier to read. Your subscribers will thank you.
The details of coding
How to do this changes based on the current email programs. Gmail is one of the worst offenders for stripping out CSS related information. So what worked in 2004 won't work now with Gmail. Here is the best article on how to code HTML emails.
- Phil
