When you download HTML email templates, the first consideration that you pay to the templates are how well they appeal to you visually. This can be a challenging task to the non-graphical eye. There are many design elements and principles that go into proper visual design. These are applied in all forms of art and are especially true in the field of web design. However, there are just a crucial five that it fundamentally comes down to.
1. Color. There are many elements of color that go into an email template and many of these can be changed as well. In most likelihood your will have to change some of these colors. This can be done by a small change in the style sheet or in the HTML code. Ideally, all you have to do is to use your corporate branding colors or replicate the colors from your website.
2. Elements on screen. This can mean anything from the text to image ratio and even go on to encompass the interactive elements on your screen. However, fundamentally, it falls in the category of image to text. In a newsletter format, the image to text ratio is skewed 70:30 in favor of imagery. This is because your objective is to drive users back to your site and not present to them complete articles. In the case of bulk email for marketing, download HTML email templates that are the exact opposite with a bulk of the information as text.
3. Contrast. You will find many templates that are too well endowed with color. These can include clashing borders and watermarks. In general, try and avoid templates with some kind of watermark or background design as this will only serve to distract the reader. Additionally, use a white background as this is easier to read than white text on a black background.
4. Clutter. Clutter is a problem that most newsletters and bulk email marketing material face. Plan out your releases in such a way that you do not end up having to jam in to
5. Multimedia. Images speak a thousand words and moving images a thousand more. This simply means that the more animated gifs and movie clips you use, the more the chances that you can reduce unnecessary text and imagery in your mail.
Most other elements of design are intuitive to judge when you download HTML email templates. These include placing the more priority items on the left side. For example, if the mainstay of your mail is an image place it on the left and text on the right since most cultures read from the left to the right. Then there is the question of using images at all. This is a call that you have to make if you think that most of your users do not have broadband connections or email clients that will block out images or HTML.
Henry Cass is a best practices activist and advocate for Benchmark Email ( http://www.benchmarkemail.com/resources/OtherResource/Email-Newsletter ) a leading Web and permission-based service for sending newsletters
