E-Mail : Think Small Screen

In the recesses of Web time-like the early '90s, when Mosaic was "the" browser-there were few choices for designing on the Web. Now with CSS 3.0 looming on the horizon, the possibilities for designing on the small screen are increasing exponentially. But for those needing to create the digital counterpart of the printed flier, the technical possibilities are not much progressed from the digital Wild West equivalent of the mid-'90s.

Designers polishing their skills on e-mail campaigns are working from a smaller toolbox. With technical options primarily limited to carefully composed images set in HTML tables, the e-mail campaign of today will not work using either the newest JavaScript nor the cutting-edge CSS tags. But even with these technological limitations, there are choices you should make carefully which will result in significant payback in customer response.

First, and most importantly, who is your target audience, and what is the visual image of your company or product? This focus should be at the basis of every design decision made. Run down your mental checklist with each design revision: Are you keeping on target of your goals? Can you verbalize exactly why each item is in your design? If your answer to any of them is your version of, "Well, it looks cool," then take out that element.

Don't Forget the Basics
There's a good reason you learn basics first. If your background is in print design, think of the e-mail as a poster. And like a poster, it's all about immediate impact! If you don't get your message across quickly, your e-mail is destined for the trash folder. Hierarchy, space, composition, alignment-all those things are found in the beginning pages of a design textbook, and they should govern your creative execution. One trick to try: Look at the design on the screen, and then squint your eyes so everything is out of focus. What do you see? Do some elements stand out? Or are you just seeing a mass of medium gray? If you're in the 50 percent gray category, it's time to seriously re-evaluate your design.

Think Small
One of the real challenges most people face when designing anything for the computer screen is the lack of a constant size. When you're designing for a printed page, you know the exact dimensions of the final page, and your bleeds work without a hitch. But a digital "page" could be anything from 640 pixels by 480 pixels to the 30-inch behemoth monitor that has a resolution of 2,560 pixels by 1,600 pixels. Again, e-mail design has its own set of quirks and, often times, an even smaller effective display area. After making more accommodations for the e-mail packages themselves, e-mail designs need to be very compact-many times around 500 pixels in width.