A Step-By-Step Guide To Creating An Effective Email Design System

Improve your email campaigns with an email design system. This guide breaks down the process into easy steps for successful implementation.

Saif Akram

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May 9, 2024

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A Step-By-Step Guide To Creating An Effective Email Design System

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An Email design system is a powerful tool that can streamline your email design process, ensure brand consistency, and improve email marketing efficiency. With a well-structured email design system, you can create beautiful, engaging, and responsive emails that resonate with your audience and drive results. Whether you're a small business owner, a marketer at a large corporation, or an email design enthusiast, learning more about email design systems can help you improve your email marketing game and elevate your brand's email design. So, let's dive in and explore the world of email design systems together!

What Is An Email Design System?

Email design systems are a collection of reusable components, guided by standards that teams use to create on-brand emails more consistently and efficiently. This system is an ultimate solution for brand consistency in numerous ways. It sets up a library of fonts, colors, and other elements essential for creating email campaigns.

Establishing Brand Consistency with Email Campaign Libraries

It is a single source of truth for all email campaigns to be created. It is a library of all the different content blocks (modules) that you use to create your email campaigns. With such a system in place, you ensure consistency across all email campaigns, ultimately reinforcing your brand image.

Enhancing User Experience through Email Design Systems

In email design systems, consistency is the key to brand success. It establishes a consistent user experience across different media platforms. Not just emails, even brand marketing materials like emails, benefit from a consistent design system. User experience is consistent across email campaigns, and the design process is accelerated.

Streamlining Email Creation with Design System Efficiency

A design system of a brand is intended to establish consistency and efficiency across the media through which a brand manifests itself. It is a collection of reusable components, guided by standards that teams use to create on-brand emails more consistently and efficiently. The main objective of such a system is to create consistent user experiences while accelerating the design process of brand marketing material like emails.

Empowering Teams with Reusable Components in Email Design Systems

Email design systems are a set of guidelines that consist of a library of graphic elements and functional components reusable across different media. This system makes these resources available to designers, developers, editorial team members, and marketing professionals. These guidelines enable them to create and deliver a consistent user experience that reflects a brand's image and values.

Extending Design Systems Beyond Email for Unified Brand Experience

Design systems are not just about email design. They encompass other brand design systems as well. The main point is to establish consistency and efficiency across different media platforms. This way, the user experience is consistent. The design process is faster, and the marketing material is more efficient.

How Does An Email Design System Help Your Team?

Brand consistency across platforms is key to promoting a coherent brand. It increases brand awareness which makes your brand stand out in the customer’s minds. As your team gets bigger and your communication channels increase, you might lose control over who designs what and how. And you end up with a scrambled inconsistent brand. When a company has a design system like an email design system, it becomes the brand’s single source of truth for design. It becomes the origin of all emails created for any campaign.

Scaling Email Production

Having the ability to put together pre-designed elements allows the marketing teams to create multiple designs in a timely manner, without having to reinvent the wheel every time they need to design an email campaign.

Boosting Team Efficiency with Email Design Systems

Having a standardized email design system can save time and reduce errors in the email creation process. With predefined templates and styles, designers can scale email design and create new emails that adhere to the established guidelines.

Empowering Team Members with Email Design Systems

In the past, the design process was exclusive to only a dedicated design team (external or internal). This was because of the lack of design skills of the rest of the company and the importance of maintaining a consistent design. Using design systems, multiple team members can participate in the design and content creation processes because components are already pre-designed.

Marketing teams don’t need advanced design or coding skills to create email campaigns. All they need to do is reuse pre-established components and stack them like a puzzle. Your team members feel empowered. The workload would be evenly distributed while always guaranteeing high-quality productions.

Accelerating Email Marketing Success with AI-Powered Templates

Mailsplash is an AI-powered tool to create stunning email templates that convert. Design and create stunning/converting emails (campaigns, flows, all of it) in minutes. Send with any email service provider (Mailchimp, Klaviyo, etc.). We enable freelancers, brands, and agencies to rapidly create personalized, converting email campaigns at a lower cost than traditional marketing agencies, from email copywriting, to personalized branded email template design.

Try our All-in-one Email Solution today for free.

Email Layout

Unlayer

Email Mockup

Email Header Design

What's Included In An Email Design System

Building an Email Design System

An email design system usually consists of the following components:

Brand colors and assets like logos, icons, and imagery

Brand colors, logos, icons, and imagery are crucial components of an email design system. They ensure that all emails are consistent with the company's branding and convey a cohesive message to the subscribers.

Email modules used to build emails, like snippets and partials

Email modules such as snippets and partials are pre-built components that can be used to create emails quickly and efficiently. They help maintain consistency across different campaigns and ensure that all emails adhere to the design system standards.

Email templates that can be reused across campaigns

Email templates are pre-designed layouts that can be reused across different campaigns. They help streamline the email creation process and ensure that all emails follow the design system guidelines.

Documenting the Email Design System

The standards often dictate the usage of those components, and could include:

Documentation such as the logic behind design and implementation decisions

Documentation plays a crucial role in an email design system. It provides insights into the rationale behind design decisions and helps team members understand the principles guiding the system.

HTML comments on usage included in modules and templates

HTML comments embedded within modules and templates provide additional information on how to use them effectively. They act as a guide for team members and ensure that components are used correctly.

Kick-off meetings and ongoing training around design system usage

Kick-off meetings and ongoing training sessions are essential components of an email design system. They help introduce team members to the design system, clarify any doubts, and ensure that everyone understands how to use the system effectively.

Empowering Teams with Email Design Systems

Together, these components and standards form a system that empowers teams to scale their email marketing production. Email design systems streamline the email creation process, maintain consistency across campaigns, and ensure that all emails reflect the company's branding and messaging. By following the design system guidelines, teams can create impactful and visually appealing emails that resonate with subscribers.

How To Create An Email Design System

The first step is to determine if you need an email design system and then commit as a team to build one. Here are a few questions to consider:

Does it take a long time to build email campaigns?

Do we frequently run into mistakes during the QA process or after hitting send?

Are there a lot of people helping with email marketing, design, and development?

Do we feel hampered by our current email production process?

Is design consistency a challenge across your team?

Do you have team members with varying ranges of email experience?

Audit your existing email marketing program

The next step is to audit your existing emails—both marketing and transactional—and identify what needs to be included in your email design system. Using spreadsheets to document the details of every email you send is a good practice.

Discuss and document design decisions

Hold meetings and discuss how to implement your design system. Document the important decisions about what should be included in the design system and how it should be implemented.

Build your design system

Organize the actual components of your email design system in a centralized location. This should include visual designs, email modules and templates, as well as documentation around usage standards.

Get others on board

Once built, get people on board and using the email design system. Commit to ongoing training and updates to ensure continued usage and adoption.

Rinse and repeat

Design systems aren’t meant to be static. Constantly evolve and update your email design system to ensure it continues to meet the needs of your team.

All-in-one Email Solution

Mailsplash is an AI-powered tool to create stunning email templates that convert. Design and create stunning/converting emails (campaigns, flows, all of it) in minutes. Send with any email service provider (Mailchimp, Klaviyo, etc.). We enable freelancers, brands, and agencies to rapidly create personalized, converting email campaigns at lower cost than traditional marketing agencies, from email copywriting, to personalized branded email template design.

Try our All-in-one Email Solution today for free.

A Step-By-Step Guide To Creating An Effective Email Design System

When building an email design system, the first step is to establish the layout of your emails. This involves finding the right balance between design elements and white space. Experiment with various layouts like single-column, double-column, or hybrid to choose one that aligns with your branding and message you wish to convey.

Choose an Email Style

Select an email style that complements your brand and the message you want to communicate. Whether you prefer a Clean, Bold, Pastel, Geometric, or Retro style, make sure it matches your brand identity and resonates with your audience.

Standardize Typography

Standardizing the typography in your emails is crucial. Use the recommended font sizes like:

H1: 28px

H2: 24px

H3: 20px

H4: 18px

Paragraph: 16px

CTA: 18px

Combine fonts strategically — pair regular and bold fonts, balance script fonts with bold fonts, or mix tall and short fonts for visual interest. Ensure that you keep the hierarchy of header styles in check for clear content organization.

Create Reusable Content Blocks

Develop custom content blocks like CTA blocks, blog sharing blocks, or image blocks that you can reuse in future emails. This will streamline your email design process and maintain consistency across campaigns.

Add a Branded Header Block

Incorporate a 'Header' block in your email template and customize it with elements like your logo, description, and recipient name. Ensure that the header block aligns with the email's purpose and target audience. A promotional email, for example, should prominently display sale details and the call-to-action (CTA).

Design Consistent Body Content

Include image or gallery blocks, CTAs, and other commonly used elements in the body of your email. Consistency in the layout and design of these blocks will enhance the overall look and feel of your emails.

Maintain Branding in the Footer

Integrate a footer block with elements like social media icons, a signature, company name, physical address, phone number, and unsubscribe link. Keeping the branding consistent in the footer block will reinforce your brand identity and help establish trust with your subscribers.

Customize Templates for Different Campaigns

Leverage the repeatable blocks you've created to build new templates for various use cases, such as announcements, engagement, event bookings, feedback requests, newsletters, onboarding, or promotions. This allows you to create diverse email campaigns without the need for coding from scratch.

Complete Step-by-Step Guide On How To Use Mailsplash’s All-in-one AI Email Solution To Create An Email Design System

Getting Started: Uploading Brands and Products

Before you can generate an email, you’ll need to upload a brand and product.

Navigate to the “Brands” tab and select “Add a Brand”. Once you’ve defined the brand’s name, logo(s), font(s), and color(s), you can upload your product(s).

You can do so by simply pasting in the product link, which will auto-populate the product description, name, and images, as seen below. Now you’re ready to design and write stunning emails with Mailsplash.

Design & Write Emails with Mailsplash: A Guide

Generate with AI

Not sure where to start? From your dashboard, click “Generate with AI” to get to ideating. Simply select the brand(s) and product(s) you’ve uploaded and describe the email you’re looking for (e.g. an email campaign promoting new pants on sale for 25% off). You can even define the design style you’re looking for!

If you’re feeling like a pro, click “Advanced Setup” to get more detailed access to other parameters such as your target audience, the type of email, and so on. Once you’re happy, click generate and watch the magic happen! In 30 seconds or less, you’ll have a email custom-tailored to your input.

Start from Template

Already know what kind of email you’re looking to create? You can then click “Start from Template” and browse through our gallery of templates, curated for the most common use cases. We currently support 21 templates for 7 different categories, but will be continuing to update this based on your feedback! Once you select an email type, you’ll be prompted to select a brand and product and be taken straight to the builder.

Sending Emails: Integrate with Any ESP

When exporting your email generation, you’ll be able to integrate with Klaviyo by inputting your API key. It’s as simple as that. We’re working on adding support for other major ESPs!

Now you should be well-equipped to save time and money on your email marketing.

Still confused? Have feedback? Let us know by sending us an email.

Things To Keep In Mind While Creating And Implementing An Email Design System

The formulation of an email design system should absolutely be a collaborative effort between all the relevant team members and departments. Since different disciplines are involved in bringing an email template to life, it is only fair that all of their considerations are factored in while creating the design system.

Along with taking the opinions of your team members, make it a point to research the design systems of the best in the business to understand the direction in which you should be molding your efforts. This will not only provide you with a fresh perspective but also enable you to identify best practices to incorporate into your own design system, ensuring that it is robust, thorough, and has considered a wide range of opinions and perspectives.

Best Email Template Builder

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3 Sources Where You Can Find Email Design System Templates

1. Mailsplash

Try our All-in-one Email Solution today for free.

2. Figma

Figma offers a collection of free email design system templates that can be easily customized and applied to your brand. You can access these templates HERE.

3. ThemeForest

ThemeForest provides a marketplace for email templates designed by professional designers. You can find a wide variety of templates for different email platforms and purposes.

Create Fully-Built Stunning Email Templates That Convert With Mailsplash

Mailsplash is a cutting-edge AI-powered tool designed to streamline the creation of eye-catching email templates that are proven to convert. With Mailsplash, you can effortlessly design and develop captivating email campaigns and sequences in just minutes, regardless of the email service provider you prefer.

This powerful tool is a game-changer for freelancers, agencies, and brands looking to swiftly generate customized, high-converting email campaigns at a fraction of the cost that traditional marketing agencies charge. From crafting compelling email copy to designing personalized branded email templates, Mailsplash offers an all-in-one email solution that is both efficient and cost-effective.

Give Mailsplash a try today and experience the ease and effectiveness of designing emails that captivate and convert.

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Written by

Saif Akram

Hello, I'm Saif Akram, founder of MonetizeMail, an innovative email marketing agency. We're proud partners with Klaviyo and Customer.io, specializing in boosting MRR and reducing customer churn. Our agency has scaled over 50 brands, generating over $18M in revenue. With proven expertise in enhancing engagement and driving sales, I'm passionate about transforming businesses through effective email marketing strategies.