Teaming up together to bring us this sassy email newsletter are two of design’s good guys - the team at Cog Design and Brian Thies. If the latter sounds familiar to you, it’s because we featured him in our blog the other week - and the tributes to his code mastery haven’t stopped flowing in.

There are lots of great things to say about Cog’s handiwork, too - the copy is so personable and the images simply pop. It’s a beautiful newsletter and reflects well on their brand and their work. Well done, Brian and Cog!

It’s great to see responsive email design in action, especially when it’s wrapped in as pretty a package as this newsletter from MMT Digital. This is both a technically and aesthetically beautiful design, not to mention, absolutely unmissable in the inbox - and a favourable reflection on the overall quality of MMT’s work. A big ‘well done’ to the team!

This perky email from Pencil Case by Inkreaser has it all - web fonts, a responsive layout, Retina-optimized images, an instructive animated GIF and best of all, good news! In fact, it’s likely that we’ll recommend our customers take a look at this campaign when applying these optimizations to their own campaigns. As this is an email for a service that recommends resources to designers, it’s funny that we’re recommending this as a resource. How very meta.

Overall, this is a technically and aesthetically brilliant campaign, for a service that well, we’re pretty partial towards, too. Two thumbs up!

As you’ve likely guessed this is a bit of a ‘fan girl’ entry - we weren’t simply going to let rock titans, Queens of the Stone Age, pass through our servers without a bit of a salute. But star-power aside, we love the animated image, that emerges from the black. The short teaser copy, promoting the first single off their new album. The social sharing links - after all, announcements like this are all about the sharing. Finally, the narrow width makes it ideal fodder for reading on mobile devices.

Overall, it’s a pretty postcard from the abyss - and well, we can’t wait to hear the new album.

As they say, better late than never. Thankfully, this invitation by FREE retains its quirky, illustrated charms, regardless of what season it is. The careful use of typography, color and fun copy means that it's sure to be a welcome sight in any inbox, even after the tinsel has been packed away. Oh well, I just hope we all get invited to next year's event!

During the holiday season, we thought we’d feature a couple of the lovely festive designs that have slid across our desk. Now, if you’ve been following this gallery, you may have noticed that we’re quite partial to the animated GIF, so this e-card from Suka, an NYC-based creative agency was near-irresistable. After they explained the love that went into it, we were sold:

Every year, we send a Thanksgiving card to our clients to express our gratitude and appreciation. It is also a way for us to stand out from the many holiday cards they receive in December. This year, we decided to send it electronically, so we could incorporate motion to tell a story and track the results. Each member of the Suka team was assigned a character from the word “THANKS!” which he/she was required to create using three-dimensional objects. The results were very unique and quite stunning. After an extensive but supremely fun (and at times silly) photo shoot, we used the shots to create an animated GIF.

Nicely done, Suka - may you and yours have a great holiday season ahead!

It’s great to see creative companies promoting their Kickstarter campaigns and this newsletter for Eyetoons, by Ian Traynor at Six Creative isn’t anything short of pleasing to the eye. The use of bright colors and large text makes this campaign unmissable in the inbox, while the balance of text and imagery means that it’s a lovely campaign with images on, but just as readable when images are blocked in the inbox.

Our only advice would be to use a darker color for the links - the bright yellow may look great surrounding the content, but is just a little too light when applied to text. But overall, this is a newsletter that deserves your backing!

PS: Make sure you view the newsletter to see the super-subtle animated GIF.

When we see responsive email designs in the wild, it makes us happy. But when we see an email that’s not only looks great on mobile devices, but also covers some of my personal loves (cocktails and magazines that smell like books), then two words come to mind - ‘gallery worthy’.

This announcement for Hot Rum Cow magazine, designed by White Light Media and built by Binary Vein is a by-the-book example of responsive design in practice. As Adam at Hot Rum Cow explains:

The ‘Twitter Mobile Makeover’ in the Guide to Responsive Email Design really did it for me. It assured me that if we built a responsive website, we also needed responsive emails. It also had me interested in code all of a sudden - not my usual day’s work.

Despite being ‘not a usual day’s work’, this design shows mastery over mobile tricks and techniques, including code to prevent phone numbers and addresses from turning blue. The source code is well worth a look if you’re interested in what it takes to build a mobile-optimized design from the ground up.

Overall, the warm colours, great imagery and code that makes up this design makes me feel as good as a sip of hot toddy… Cheers, guys and gals!

Echograph is an awesome iPad app which lets you easily create amazing animated gifs from short video clips. Animated gifs work pretty well in emails, so this campaign was the perfect place to show how good they can be. Take that, plain text email!

When you're in the business of selling unique and curious work like Buy Olympia is, it definitely pays to have a great way to expose it. In this light and airy newsletter, we're greeted with a header prompting the reader to wake up and embrace the collection of sublime pieces, not just in their store, but in the world, too. Proportionately sized images are juxtaposed by their respective content in a simple manner, which lends itself to free movement down the page. A touch of humor in the content, easily available links to those products, plus a stable layout (even with images turned off) combine for a very solid design.

Being a Brit and coming from a previously BSE infected country, I'm sadly not able to give blood in Australia, which is a shame, as table tennis and FIFA 12 skills surge through my pale, pale veins, all of which would obviously be bestowed upon any lucky donor.

Seriously though, if I could give blood, I certainly would, as the Australian Red Cross Blood Service do a wonderful job and help save thousands of lives each year, and I'd be even keener to donate after receiving such an inviting email in my Inbox.

As with everything the Australian Red Cross do, their branding is strong and vibrant, and their message is clear. Aside from the great use of whitespace and the impeccable tables-based design, I also love how their prominent "It's been one year since your last blood donation" heading also acts as a quasi permission reminder: It's clear why you're receiving this email and it serves as the perfect segue into the content and information below.

As mentioned, not only have they coded this using a purely tables-based approach, but looking under the hood, they've also included the all-important img display:block CSS, which ensures email clients such as Gmail don't add unwanted margin / spacing to your images.

Subtle address details, links and social media functionality serve to round off this crisp campaign, and while their unsubscribe link has been added as an image, they have included title and alt text on the image to ensure it's still readable, even when images are disabled.

A really light a fun design here from Traction for Noah's Park and Playgrounds - for starters, I like how the Facebook like image is inline with the text. However, to be, there only really needs to be one forward-to-a-friend link in the footer. Plus, the dotted divider after the text content could be removed, as it's doubled up with one that is already in the footer.

Overall though, you have to love how whimsical this design is - the illustrations, paired with casual, conversational text makes this a great design to have sail into your inbox. ]]> 2012-07-02T02:40:29+00:00 Greg Strutton http://www.campaignmonitor.com/gallery/entry/3736/mk-geek-night http://www.campaignmonitor.com/gallery/entry/3736/mk-geek-night

Pixel Creation's template for Milton Keynes' first MK Geek Night seems to be channelling the David Bowie-esque cool, with bright pink highlights adding balance to the robot motif and promise of a geeky (and presumably beery) night out. It's an all-inclusive design, for what's certainly touted to be an all-inclusive event.

The top banner is as useful as it is bold. The content area is clear and the colour palette is great. We're not just saying this because it looks like our newsletter template - in this instance, Pixel Creation created something that's uniquely theirs.

All up, this is a simple design, but ever so effective.

I admit it, I'm a sucker for a well structured design, and this design from The Village Agency has structure in spades. Although it's fairly image-heavy, recipients with images disabled in their inbox are still presented with a nicely laid-out design that's easy to skim and understand.

I really would recommend they try and cut down on images containing text in the future, though - sticking to HTML for text is generally the best option.

Wearing both his developer and designer caps, Ryan Scherf created this well-designed newsletter announcing the launch of his application, Osmosis (which just so happens to be for designers as well).

The first thing you notice about Ryan's design are the very uniquely cropped screenshots. Not only do these circular elements stand out, but they tie in with the Osmosis logo and website theme perfectly. The layout is split into two columns, which neatly gives the content room to briefly explain about the new application. Lastly, Ryan nicely adds a second unsubscribe link at the bottom of the campaign to easily allow his recipients to remove themselves if not interested. A clean, simple and very effective announcement, indeed.

When it comes to catching up with your clients (or posting 'new' designs to our gallery, for that matter), it's better late than never. This is the case of this new year 2012 newsletter from design house, Supply - after all, great work takes time. TIme that's been well spent, by the look of the crisp layout and typography featured in this newsletter.

The textured, parchment-like background mixed with the earthy tone of the content as well as the blast of color from the images really give this newsletter a strong presence. View the email without images and the layout retains its super-sharp lines. The important links are purposely displayed at the top of the campaign for ease of use and for good measure... And in the footer for a bit of comedy, by the sound of their 'Legal Shiznizel' unsubscribe link. Overall, a job nicely done!

Oh my, look at this minimalist email for Room East by the designers at Project Projects. The stark gray-on-gray-on-gray is perfectly appointed for the provocative artwork they are showcasing. As a viewer, I am drawn in, presented a perfect focal point, and allowed to discover the details that surround it. The layout eschews texture and dramatic contrast thereby drawing the user closer with a soft voice, rather than with showing off and shouting.

It’s not often that we come across press releases here, but this is definitely a far-cry from the bland sales pitches that you tend to receive in the media industry. Like the works therein, this is a design to admire.

This is a lovely, whimsical campaign from Analog Creative, announcing their migration from the UK to the US. The one-column design makes for easy-reading on mobile devices and really, how could you ignore this message in your inbox?

While the campaign is certainly image-heavy, the graphic elements are really classy and well-considered. I'm not too sure about the text placement, which seems a bit out of place in areas. Also, the unsubscribe link looks like a bit of an after-thought and is easy to miss at first glance. But overall, this is a fun and funky campaign - a flying penny farthing is always the mark of a winning design!

There are some hidden treasures in this campaign from EllisLab, famously known as the developers of ExpressionEngine. If you take a look at the main body of the email, it appears to have a drop shadow on the right side. Is it an image? A border? CSS3's box-shadow? Nope! I was surprised to see that it's the HTML attribute bgcolor applied to a containing table cell which is 3 pixels wider than the nested table. There's great support for this wonderfully simple method.

The other treasure that's easily missed is the text at the very top of the campaign which becomes the preheader, or the summary text just after the subject line in your inbox. When viewing the campaign it's barely noticeable, but it can be especially powerful for getting an email noticed in mobile email clients and Gmail.

This is just the kind of campaign you'd expect from EllisLab, subtly smart in the details.

You would think that an email newsletter about the latest pieces in a jewelry collection would be image-heavy, but this design for POUND Jewelry by Copal has found a good balance. For instance, using text in your headings is important and the simplest solution is usually best, but we often see a lot email designs where non web fonts have been selected and therefore require the use of images. Copal stayed the course with item headings as text, while being creative with forward slashes and varying tints to make them interesting.

I'm a big fan of pairing Arial as headline text with Courier New as body text; the combination is modern and readable. That said, the two things I would do differently would be to make the 'Shop now' call-to-action button actual text and likewise, use more text around the main header image. Overall, this is a great newsletter for highlighting POUND's wildly creative work!

Thanking your beta testers is important! They are the people that helped you get your application to a point where it's ready to be unleashed to the world. How better to reward them then by sending a little treat via a simple, yet fantastic looking email.

This campaign for the Dropmark collaboration app by oak is split into five different sections, two of which are the obligatory header and footer areas, just as you would expect. The first main content area is short, sweet and very succinct, thanking testers and giving the opportunity to upgrade. Then we have a little section showing what's new, including screen shots. Nice touch as the tester may not have seen these updates. Finally, there is a section which provides information about what Dropmark is, which is handy for those recipients that may have been forwarded the email... Or if you're absent minded, like me.

We're really pleased to introduce... This neat little notification email from WorkFu!

When it comes to letting your users know that you have made changes to your application, it can be easy to over do things a little. Here however, is a great example in getting the details out in a simple and efficient way. Even though it hasn't been optimised for mobile devices, it still reads really well on my iPhone. The customised Twitter button, inviting current users to share with friends is a fine touch.

It's great to see Mike Kus and team keeping their users so keenly up to date during the beta of their up-and-coming job site, especially as communications like this are so often just an after-thought amidst all the development and design busyness that leads up to a launch.

Really simple, but really effective!

Do you remember the day you discovered all those TED videos that were suddenly available to the common joe? It was like a whole new world opened up. This smart and visually stunning email by TBD captures the Ted brand so well with it’s modern art styling, dramatic colors, and that deceptively simple yet enticing graphic that is reminiscent of those static “moving” illusions.

A nice narrow layout ensures mobile friendliness and a clever use of layout space means that a lot of the important info gets above the proverbial fold. All around, an email that will grab attention when it arrives.

Hello, my name is Davida and I like Courier. I’ve always liked it, sometimes secretly, like when my colleagues would be bashing it’s name loudly from the desk next over. But I’ve always loved the way it gives a typewriter feel and when combined with the visual metaphor of paper, although commonly used, I really do think works well. 

Adding to this design by The Turtle Conservancy are pleasing textures and adorable photos. The designers make nice use of white space to separate out the articles which helps bring attention to the ‘Read More’ link on the shortened articles.  Generally, I would recommend against such a long email, but with such a specialized topic I’d be willing to bet that this audience is very engaged and would be happy to receive a lot of information on a topic dear to their hearts.

This eye-capturing email campaign, designed by Matt Hackett, packs a lot of content well into a small area but remains uncrowded and easy to read. A peek at David Bostock’s stunning wedding photography portfolio is accompanied by testimonials, contact information, links and more.

The distinct separation of foreground and background colors is emphasized so simply by the subtle shadows around the top and bottom corners, assisting the photographs to leap from the screen to the viewer’s attention.

We particularly like the detailed permission reminder, which leaves no doubt in the reader’s mind as to why they’re receiving the email. Overall, this is a thoughtfully-designed email and a credit to Matt Hackett’s familiarity with the medium.

This invitation email for St. Theresa Catholic School by Fervor Creative knows what its job is, and does it well.  It’s simple use of three colours and subtle shades thereof, basic but effective imagery, plus short but informative content that makes this campaign a delight. The ample use of text ensures that most of the message can be read, even when images aren’t displaying in the inbox.

On that note, the only minor suggestion would be to have a text alternative for those buttons, to be sure they still have some context under these conditions. But overall, this is a great campaign that’s sure to captivate subscribers at any time of day or night.

The Ghostly Store sells a variety of cool stuff like music, art and clothing - and we thought this campaign by Daniel Hunninghake looked pretty cool too!

The overall appearance is a very neat, lightweight design. The right balance of text and the variety of ways the products have been laid out make the email an interesting browse. Also achieving this balance are the call to action links, which are subtle, yet striking. The purple text mimics Ghostly’s logo and the light gray background and fine shadow give the links a tactile “button-like” feel.

We always like mobile-friendly layouts and this is one of them. For example, the links here have been set apart from the text (and each other), reducing the risk of accidentally tapping things that by accident.

The little sketches on this email produced by DanceXchange for the International Dance Festival Birmingham really bring it alive. The newsletter layout makes for an easy read in email clients - for example, the single column of text is likely to display nicely on a mobile device. Well done to designers Supercool for making it happen.

That said, we’d love the permission reminder in the footer to be more meaningful. Something like, “You’re receiving this email because you signed up for Home updates via …” would be appropriate. We’ve featured a couple of tips for writing effective permission reminders.

Overall, this is a carefully designed and visually interesting campaign, not to mention a great example for other organizations taking part in events leading up to the 2012 Olympic Games.

If Enigma's goal is to make 2012 "bigger, bright, better..." then they are definitely off to a great start with this email design. The colors absolutely leap off the screen in what could have been an overly bright cacophony of colors and images, but instead just work incredibly well and come across as a cheerful and exuberant tone.

We love their focus on mobile optimization, as shown by their use of media queries and a one-column layout. If you think this looks nice on the desktop monitor, it looks even better when viewed on your @media -supporting phone. If you're keen to do the same, why not take a look at their code, check out our blog post on mobile email design, or easier yet, use the template builder?

One suggestion would be that they increase the contrast between their text and background colors, though. Some areas with grey or white text weren't as easy to read as they could have been. But overall, this is a campaign that's worth cracking open the champagne for!

Just in time for TYPO San Francisco (5-6 April), we're featuring one of their beautiful email newsletters, by event organizer and cool customer, FontShop. As can be expected, its been designed by type nerds, for type nerds. A variety of typefaces have been used, mostly of the sans-serif variety, to create a modern, harmonious look. There's a lot of visual interest to be had, thanks to the use of their molecular model motif, bright colors and good-quality images. Before anyone goes on to say it's too image-heavy, it's to be noted that all the important stuff - registration details, speaker bios - are all in text, so the message is not lost when images are off.

My only recommendation is that this announcement should feature a call-to-action and links that are not so buried in the text - my fear is that after a couple of seconds, a reader may not know how to respond. But all up, this is a great design that practices what TYPO preaches by placing typography in the fore.

Tickets are still available for TYPO SF, so if you don't have one already, it's your last chance to register!

Club Of The Waves has a keen eye for really fantastic surf artwork, so it's great to see how Andrew Couldwell at RoomFive managed to capture this in his email design for them. He deftly uses alt text and background colors on images; each thumbnail has a background corresponding to its left border color creating a column made up of different colored blocks, making for an interesting design, even without images showing.

There's something to be said for not using the same link color for each article. It's a bit like a 'which-one-of-these-is-not-like-the-others' puzzle. I can't help but wonder, 'Why is that link yellow?', and I'm tempted to click it just out curiosity.

The text in the campaign also benefits from tight editing. Less is more. Each text section could only be 3 lines within the narrow column, so I imagine the value of each and every word was weighed. The result is a short email that's easy on the eyes.

This awesome email from design agency Make for Stedet Tæller really personifies the idea of a sleek well designed email. A subtle blue background helps draw attention to the clearly segmented sections so your eyes know exactly where to go and the bright vibrant images really spice things up when they're enabled. I love how well it matches their overall site branding as well. It's instantly recognizable as being from Stedet Tæller, while still being simplified for email.

I would, however, suggest that they make their unsubscribe a text link rather than an image. It's always best to be safe and make sure the unsubscribe is clearly labeled even with images off.

Here's an email from DesignKarma that I would have loved to see in my inbox for Christmas. What's not to love about the super simple layout and color scheme? Turquoise and black are a great pairing.

What might not be immediately obvious, though, is that this is a fluid layout, as opposed to the fixed layouts that make up 99.9% of email. Even the width of the images in the campaign expand/contract so that the layout fits the window, and it'll shrink nicely to fit smaller (read mobile) screens. This won't work for everyone, but it's fun to see when it does. Try it now! Click the screenshot above and then resize your browser window.

The Southern Design team have put together a design that has been built to suit the constraints of email - it's clearly linked in branding to the main site, but is simpler and cleaner. We really like the simple, text-based design.

The shifting layout from one, to two columns adds lots of visual interest, as do the bright images and sense of hierarchy in the text. Our only advice would be to be careful featuring URLs as text, as these can sometimes trigger phishing warnings, but overall, this is a lean and clean email that's sure to look good in any inbox.

Rawww created their own Christmas email to match the launch page of their upcoming 'Infographic of the day' website. Once images are loaded, this bold design that's made to look like it's set on Christmas-themed infographic wrapping paper really stands out.

I would have liked to see actual text used in the header above to prevent the message being lost when images are disabled. Also, the website link below can potentially trigger phishing warnings. Hopefully these didn't dampen the Christmas spirit, as it's a jolly design nonetheless.

This email for Blamey by nhocreative is stylish simplicity itself with a delicious mix of the bold contrasting with the understated. Oddly enough, I am enamored with the humble footer which simply lists out the social options and websites - it makes it feel much more like a gentle invitation than an in-your-face plea to connect.

However, and I feel more and more strongly about this these days since I practically live on my phone, I would highly suggest the use of mobile optimization to slightly scale down the width of the overall email for those on the go.