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How many promotional emails did you get in your inbox today? And out of all of them, how many did you actually read, understand, and click on?
Chances are, you hardly opened any of those emails, and out of those you’ve opened, you might have clicked the call-to-action button in one, if that. Such demonstrates the power of email design and why it’s crucial to have a compelling subject line, body copy, and design. This is where email design services come in, providing businesses with the expertise and resources to create engaging emails that convert.
Table of Contents
- What Is Email Design?
- Why is Email Desig Important?
- Types of Email for Marketing
- Trends in Email Design
- Examples of Awesome Email Design Templates
- What Are The Types of Email Design Services
- Get Unlimited Email Designs with Us!
What Is Email Design?
Email design is creating visually appealing and effective email messages sent to a target audience for various purposes, such as marketing, communication, or information sharing.
Email design involves various elements that work together to create an impactful message:
Businesses carefully design promo emails to make their audience want to take a desired action, such as purchasing, signing up for a service, or clicking a link. We offer email design services as part of our unlimited graphic design package.
Why is Email Design Important?
If email campaigns are a part of your marketing strategy, then you should never leave design to chance. It’s crucial to make a good first impression and build upon it. Many of our clients here at Penji prioritize frequent email designs to get the most bang for their buck. For instance, take a look at this standard email we designed for a B&B:

Image Licensed by Penji
Your audience may not consciously notice these details, but its important to use symmetry along with the best vector designs, fonts, and layouts to make emails easily digestible and actionable.
Taking off from our example above, here are some of the benefits of well-thought-out email designs:
- Professional image. Well-designed emails with a consistent brand identity can help businesses create a professional image and make a positive first impression on their customers.
- Readability. A well-designed email ensures that the content is easy to read and understand, with appropriate use of fonts, colors, and layout.
- Increased engagement. A visually appealing email design can help capture the recipient’s attention and increase their engagement with the email content.
- Stronger message. A well-designed email can help businesses effectively convey their message to their audience by highlighting important information and using appropriate formatting and layout.
- Enhanced brand recognition. Consistent email design elements, such as the use of the same logo and color scheme, can help businesses enhance their brand recognition and strengthen their brand identity.
Types of Email for Marketing

Every email marketing campaign demands a unique email design. For instance, a personal letter from the CEO is best delivered through plain text email, while promoting best-selling products calls for the use of rich HTML email.
Let’s explore three common types of email designs to help you determine which aligns best with your strategy.
Plain Text
Plain text email is simple format that does not need any introduction and visual effects. It commonly used in personal correspondence.
Pros:
- Feels personal
- Includes only vital information
- Accessible
- Responsive and mobile-friendly
- Simple to create
Cons:
- Lacks wow factor
- Challenging to integrate marketing strategies
Rich HTML Email Design
Rich HTML email resembles a mini landing page. It has a unique structure, photos, coloring, typography, etc.They are made with HTML and CSS.
Pros:
- Flexible
- Include images, animated gifs, dynamic effects
- Well-organized and formatted
- Responsive and mobile-friendly
Cons:
- Inconsistent display
- Needs design and coding skills
But there is a solution. Try using Postcards, an HTML email template generator. With its user-friendly drag-and-drop interface and beautifully designed modules, you won’t need to code everything from scratch.
Interactive Email Designs
Interactive email design is a relatively new concept. Unlike other types, it has an additional wow factor that can attract any audience. But, there is a significant challenge. Today, the majority of email readers are not compatible with JavaScript. So, you are left with a small segment of the market that can appreciate this email design.
Alternatively, you can fake interactivity using animated GIFs and CSS-powered efforts or you can use supported interactive features. You can also send a fully interactive equipped with a browser version.
Depending on your email campaign’s objectives, you can further refine each category into specific types of email designs, including:
- Holiday Email Designs
- Seasonal Email Designs
- Informative Email Designs
- Promotional Email Designs
- Re-engagement Email Designs
- Transactional Email Designs
- Behavioral Email Designs
Trends in Email Design
What emerging trends will guide and influence email marketing strategies and shape communications in the coming year? Here’s a brief rundown.
Visually-Appealing Confirmation Emails to Double Opt-In
In email marketing, the most critical first interactions involve verifying the email address and acknowledging the transaction between the company and the individual.
Image Source: Prodigy
As more people prefer personalized experiences in email channels, expect companies to ditch robot-like messages. To keep up with this trend, create vibrant, branded newsletters with a visually appealing experience. This means adding illustrations, animated gifs, or dynamic elements and highlighting brand identity.
Personalized Emails
To keep with new email marketing guidelines and maintain consumer’s interest in the brand, you must let them decide what they want to receive and how often they want to get it.
Many big companies have used this technique by regularly inviting their subscribers to check preference centers. They encourage them to adjust their email interface based on their current preferences, needs, and demands. People will see more personalized emails in 2025 as companies recognized the power of letting customers control email preferences. To keep up with this trend, you must personalize email, highlight important information, and invest on branding features to create a successful email campaign.
Highlighted Unsubscribe Links
The latest regulations and updates from Google require bulk senders to ensure a one-click unsubscribe button with a clean and straightforward process. Companies will focus on this functionality as they adapt to these new rules.
Image Source: Really Good Emails
The unsubscribe link is traditionally found at the bottom of digital newsletters. While its position is likely to remain the same due to customer familiarity, it will become more prominent to ensure easy identification and access. Brands will emphasize this crucial detail through strategic formatting and styles in their content.
AI-Powered Hyper-Personalized Content
AI-powered hyper-personalization is transforming how brands connect with their target audience. AI algorithms has the ability to analyze vast amounts of user data to craft unique emails tailor to each recipient even beyond traditional personalization.
Moreover, AI marketing tools uses customers’ past purchases, browsing history, preferences, location, and behavioral patterns to update content within the email. The outcome is a more relevant and engaging experience that brings higher open rates, click-throughs, and conversions.
Balancing AI-Driven Content with Privacy Concerns
While artificial intelligence improves email design, it is important to strike a balance with user privacy. It is crucial to remain transparent in data usage and follow privacy regulations. Brands can provide user control over their preferences and at the same time, allow them to opt into specific types of personalization.
Examples of Awesome Email Design Templates
Here are some examples of awesome email template designs to inspire your next campaign.
1. Monochrome Palette

Image Source: &Open
This example from &Open features a monochrome palette of cream and black. As seen in the image, It creates a clean and minimalist look appealing to the eye. By using just two colors, the design is not overwhelming and allows for easy scanning and understanding of the content.
In addition, black and cream are high-contrast colors that can help create visual interest and draw attention to important elements within the email design. This can be particularly useful for call-to-action buttons or key messaging you want the recipient to notice.
2. Community Picture Banner

Image Source: Meetup
This email design from Meetup uses a prominent banner photo that shows its community members. Why does it work? Seeing a group photo of people can help create a feeling of inclusiveness and belonging. Similarly, it can make the recipients feel like they are part of a larger group.
It’s vital to remember that people are more likely to engage with an email if it feels personal and relevant to them. Design-wise, a banner with a group photo can break up the text in an email and make it more visually appealing.
3. Full-Bleed Photo

Image Source: On
This email from On features a full-bleed photo of their product. A full-bleed image extends to the edge of the design or page without any margins or borders.
As the example shows, a full-bleed photo can break up the text in an email. In addition, it can also showcase a product’s features in greater detail, creating a strong impression on the recipient.
4. Illustrations

Image Credit: Really Good Emails
This email design from the New York Magazine showcases the brand’s custom illustrations. As seen on the email, the illustration presents diversity. This shows that its target readership is anyone interested in the culture, life, and style in New York City. Their illustrations are colorful, but not overwhelming. Additionally, the illustration colors are used as the background colors on images in the email.
It’s great to use illustration to showcase a brand’s various identity assets. Some benefits of using illustrations include connecting with an audience, attracting attention, and conveying a brand’s identity.
How to create an email design system
An email design system can streamline the process of designing and coding emails. Your team can use the templates and visual assets repeatedly so nothing ever needs to be designed from scratch.
First, you’ll need to establish some basic guidelines. Determine the overall look and feel of your emails, including the color palette, typography, and branding elements. This will help cement your visual identity in the minds of customers.
Next, you’ll need a style guide. Document the design guidelines, specifying details such as font styles, sizes, heading hierarchy, button styles, image treatments, and spacing.
Once you have all the style elements sorted out, you can design a model email template. Ideally, this should allow for the easy rearrangement of content blocks. Be sure to include a header, footer, navigation bar, social media icons, and legal disclaimers as reusable components. You may want to make several templates for different purposes with some including a hero image, text blocks, call-to-action sections, and testimonials.
An email design service can take much of this work off your plate so you can have as many templates as you need.

Image Licensed by Penji
How much does an email designer cost?
The cost of hiring a freelance email designer can vary depending on various factors, such as their level of experience, the email design’s complexity, and the designer’s geographic location. In general, freelancers who offer email design services may charge anywhere from $50 to $150 per hour or more, depending on their skills and experience. If you want to get the most value for your money, you can opt for unlimited graphic design services, which allow you to get all the designs you need (even non-email ones) at a flat monthly rate.
How do I customize my email design?
Many email marketing platforms offer in-app email design software to customize the design of your emails, including pre-designed templates, drag-and-drop editors, and HTML code editors. You can choose from templates, modify colors, and add branding elements. However, if you want complete control of your email design, it’s best to leave the job to an email design agency or professional designer.
What Are The Types of Email Design Services
Freelancers
Freelancers offer one of the most affordable email design services. Based on Fiverr’s pricing, freelancers charge as low as $5/hr or per-project. It will depend on how simple or complex your designs are. Besides design, some freelancers offer HTML to optimize your email before sending it to your contacts, making their fees higher than most designers.
Agencies
Some graphic design or branding agencies include email design services in their packages. This is to ensure consistent branding across different channels. Plus, this will make it easier for businesses to edit emails to send to leads and customers. Some agencies offer marketing services, too, making them the go-to service for many businesses since they can do everything for the business.
Unlimited Graphic Design Services
The final email design service on our list is the unlimited graphic design one. This is ideal when you need to send multiple emails to customers or clients and don’t want to hire freelancers for every email project. Additionally, you can benefit from an unlimited graphic design service because you can request other designs, like logos, social media posts, and ad designs.
Graphic design is essential to any business because this is the medium where designers create logos and other brand identity assets. These serve as the starting point for any business success. Finding professionals to do these designs is easy. However, selecting the right partner is key to getting quality designs at an affordable rate. You can hire freelancers to do the job, but it can be costly to partner with them in the long run. Instead, consider an unlimited graphic design service to produce these for you. Read the article below to learn how designers design unlimited graphics.
Get Unlimited Email Designs with Us!

Image Licensed by Penji
Email marketing drives sales, but if your process isn’t optimized, you might be leaving money on the table. If you want to produce more irresistible email graphics without doing the design dirty work yourself, put it on autopilot.
Penji’s subscription design service offers unlimited graphic designs for any and all medium – social posts, product packaging, emails, and more. Just put in your requests as you need them, review your designer’s work and request revisions if needed, and be on your way.
Wanna learn more? Check out a demo to see how to get unlimited designs for your business.
About the author

Carla Deña
Carla is a journalist and content writer who produces stories for both digital and legacy media. She is passionate about creativity, innovation, and helping small businesses explore solutions that drive growth and social impact.