Jun 25 2009
Less is More in 2009
Stephen Sharp is the Creative Director at Experian CheetahMail. Every so often, he’ll be popping by to update us on the state of creative design in the email marketing world.
Over the last couple months, the email design world has seemingly evolved into a very safe and clean environment. Several designs that have come across my desk lately have all trended towards subtle and straightforward vs. aggressively eye-catching. Even direction from the client has been geared towards “tone it down” rather than the usual “make it pop” feedback. Not coincidentally, I’m currently working on a design concept that resembles a magazine grid rather than the typical flowing content structure of an email.
Is this design shift a reaction to the need for change and simpler times? Are we taking direction from the economy rather than the brand?
Before panic totally sets in, let’s examine this topic a little further from a tactical point-of-view.
Gone are the days of visually powerful, above-the-fold sections that forced users to interact under the sheer weight of their presentation. In place of the image onslaught is a cleanly typed headline positioned on an unobtrusive white background. Where once we used a heavily layered design with overlapping type and imagery to support a strong visual call-to-action, we’re now faced with quiet and respectful text links to carry our user through. In this “less is more” world, we’re forced as designers to rely solely on our best practices to push forward an email design that strikes the perfect balance between attracting the user, while playing a supporting role to the content.
Recent creative is reasserting some old beliefs of allowing the user to make their own decisions about how they interact with email, instead of being coerced visually.
In the example below, Rogers Wireless opted to leave the graphically driven template to pursue a more straightforward approach. The creative still retains a certain number of images, but those are used in support of the content within the various articles. This is an email trend I foresee continuing for at least a year, perhaps more.
