Email Design Inspiration

Written by: Chris Donald

Published on: 08-06-2023

Chris is Managing Partner at InboxArmy and has more than 25 years of experience in email marketing

Where on some days, the design ideas just flow like a medley; there’ll always be times when you struggle to get past that creative block. Fortunately, if you’re looking for email design inspiration, some valuable online resources can come to your rescue.

Whether you’ve run out of ideas, pressed for time, or feel overwhelmed creating emails that work for your target audiences, worry not! This article contains a list of curated email design inspiration galleries and some unique examples to get your creative juices flowing.

Best Places To Find Email Inspiration

InboxArmy:

InboxArmy email inspirations

Our email marketing portfolio contains a vast selection of email design and development work. Whether you’re working on a new campaign or looking for fresh email design inspiration, Our email gallery has a rich variety of eye-catching email templates. You can browse for the latest trends in layouts, colors, and even different business-type and pick up some effective design tricks for your next campaign.

Really Good Emails:

Really good emails inspiration

Really Good Emails comprises thousands of emails you can filter based on category or keywords to meet your email design inspiration needs. The extensive dropdown menu and search engine are user-friendly and help you learn what leading brands and experts are doing with their emails so that you can design your emails like a pro.

Dribble:

Dribble Inspiration example

With 18,400 plus inspirational illustrations, designs, and graphic elements from leading designers worldwide, Dribble has been a valuable resource for UX and UI designers and email designers. The high-quality email images help you discover and connect with designers worldwide while offering industry inspiration and insights for creating engaging email content.

Pinterest:

Pinterest inspirations for email

Though best recognized as a platform for cooking fashion and home design ideas, Pinterest is also an excellent platform to scour for email design inspiration. For instance, if you’re scouting for email ideas for Mother’s Day, ‘Mother’s Day Email’ or ‘Mother’s Day Email Marketing’ in the search engine. You’ll instantly get access to hundreds of Pins to get you started with your campaign.

Maool.com:

Maool inspirations for emails

This user-friendly email editor enables marketers and business owners to create exceptional marketing emails for their brands. You can browse by company and email type. Maool has a vast choice of email design inspiration for all your marketing objectives ranging from onboarding emails and promotional emails to transaction and alert email campaigns and lots more.

Email Gallery:

Email gallery inspiration

Developed focusing on the needs of email marketers, Email Gallery is a well-known resource for email newsletters and campaigns. You can explore campaigns for various businesses – from art and automotive to real estate and even religion! You can also search by keyword from this collection of emails from different companies and individuals. 

Email Design Inspiration:

email design insp. example

The platform features a good collection of marketing emails to inspire your next email campaign. It does not have search capabilities, but you can browse collections by top-rated emails, email type, and category. The user rating appears on the page alongside the specific email. The blog and resources section helps you make the most of your email campaign.

Milled:

Milled email design inspiration

The Milled is essentially a search engine for email newsletters. You can catch some of the latest email design inspiration from leading brands across different industries, including fashion, beauty, home decor, shoes, and jewelry. Once you know what’s trending in your industry and what the competition is up to, you can choose effective email designs that complement your strategy and keep you ahead.

HTML Email Gallery:

The email gallery inspiration

The platform ” HTML Email Gallery” contains a collection of the newsletter and email design inspiration along with helpful tips and tricks to enable you to design, code, and market your brand to targeted audiences. While the Tips and Tricks section is not recently updated, the email gallery is worth checking out. You can browse by categories, including color, email types, holiday, product, seasonal, purpose, and lots more!

Canva Email Templates:

Canva emails

Canva’s template directory includes email templates. Here, you can browse a selection of free templates for email designs that can be easily customized and shared. You can refine your search based on style, theme, features, subject, topic color, and price using its advanced filters. With over 400 email templates to browse through, rest assured you have enough email design inspiration ideas for the year. 

19 Examples of Email Design Inspirations

Isolated Product Visuals

Isolated Product Visuals

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This special offer email from Rogue Royalty uses captivating, authentic images that appeal to animal-loving audiences. The isolated visuals of the products with accompanying CTAs make the content readable. Likewise, the reverse lettering in the ‘About Us’ and ‘Follow Us’ sections effectively separates this subsection from the sales message.

Irregular frames

Irregular frames

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A striking feature of this email by QuietKat is the use of a relatively uncommon frame (as opposed to solid squares and rectangles). It generates a youthful energy that matches the brand. In addition, the cohesive design sets boundaries for each section while leveraging a common faded background to unite the different content sections.

Minimalism

Minimalism

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This email from The Zebra leverages a limited color palette, allowing the email content to shine. The faintly-lined modules give the email a clean and sequenced look. The unframed texts provide breathing space for the copy, making it easier for audiences to quickly scan the email and engage with the relevant CTAs.

White space

White space

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This fall sale email from Sit ‘nSleep balances its negative space (also called white space) with product displays and well-appointed CTAs to spark customer interest and action. The uncluttered layout and highlighted savings facilitate readability and comprehension. The fall motifs reflect the theme throughout the emails without taking away the attention from the key content.

Animated Gifs

Animated GifsAnimated Gifs

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The attraction of this Black Friday sale email from Sweet Home is the animated gif in the main message. Strategically implemented where the discount percentage is mentioned, the animation gives readers a non-static, festive experience. While entertaining readers, it helps reinforce the key message and influences them to visit the website, shop online, and explore products.

Holiday Theme

Holiday Theme

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This email from Falcon is designed to incorporate Halloween colors and symbols. The fonts reflect the holiday theme, and the playful tone of the email catches the reader’s attention. The highlighted discounted prices build a contrast drawing the reader’s attention to the offer. Such designs encourage the customer to seek more information and continue engaging with the email.

Dark Mode With Gif

Dark Mode With Gif

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This Black Friday Sale promotional from Orivet is aptly designed in dark mode. The white font used in a dark background facilitates a more relaxed and reader-friendly experience, even in rooms having low ambient lighting. It also gives a more sophisticated look and helps save the device’s battery. In addition, the neon gifs get users fixated, directing them to the CTA. 

Emotive Copy And Design

Emotive Copy And Design

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This email about personalized jewelry leverages emotion to motivate decision-making. The colors, product visuals and product copy evoke desired emotions. For instance, the reds and powder-puff pinks in this email reflect love and the special relationship between the giver and the receiver. The red CTA buttons also accent the invitation to shop.

Hero Image

Hero Image

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In this email advertising, a hero image is the comprising images and text first comes across, giving readers a glimpse of the email content. It also helps to attract the subscribers’ attention toward a desired CTA. In addition, the pleasant color scheme, along with the white space, makes the gift guide easy to read and understand.

 Consistency

 Consistency

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The color scheme of Rogue Royalty’s email is consistent throughout the email – gray for the product background, bright red drawing attention to new releases, and a black CTA. The bold titles help draw readers’ attention and classify the email content. The email balances the text and visuals well, and the overall layout makes it convenient to skim through.

Real Images

Real Images

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This email from Thomas Company incorporates real images in the layout, imparting a sense of transparency and authenticity. The crisp, straightforward copy with prominent CTAs is set against subtle backgrounds that accentuate the product features and improve the content’s readability. The modules are of different dimensions and break the monotony of the columnar layout.

Seasonal Colours

Seasonal Colours

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Apparel brand London’s email design exudes holiday vibes with festive fonts, symbols, and a color palette that goes with the season to highlight its festive offers. It also suitably balances the text and visuals, making the email easier to skim by using a simple design. However, the brand maintains its color scheme in the email’s subject line and About Us section to showcase consistency.

Showcase Popular Products

Showcase Popular Products

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Sweet Homeblend’s email blends animation with photographs, immediately attracting the reader’s attention with the main headline. The main message is juxtaposed against illustrative elements matching the season, while the remaining email contains a straightforward display of the popular products in different categories. This makes it easier for readers to scroll through and decide what they need.

Semi-Frames

Semi-Frames

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CanvasPrint.com incorporates its signature pink color in the design elements of its email to enable readers to develop an association with the color. The hero image provides quick insights into the key offer details, while the semi-frames enhance the aesthetics of the design and effectively showcase the products.

Simple and Sleek

Simple and Sleek

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Car rental Falcon’s marketing email’s sleek design and compelling hero image capture the reader’s attention. The products are neatly presented with limited copy and clear CTAs to facilitate engagement. The design layout for the blog section is visibly different from the product-display section – so readers can quickly notice the change in the content flow and purpose. 

Concise Messaging

Concise Messaging

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The straightforward message in the email’s main headlines helps readers understand the email’s purpose easily. The powerful visuals are relatable and will appeal to audiences who love their canine friends. The easy flow of products and ample white space help readers to digest the content and make informed decisions.

 Monochromatic Fonts

 Monochromatic Fonts

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Canvas Prints showcases a green monochromatic color scheme reflecting its St. Patrick’s sale. The lively fonts in a monochrome palette help the email to stand out in inboxes. It gives the key message a very sorted, cluttered appearance and can influence positive action by readers as they will not be overwhelmed by too many details to absorb.

Monochromatic Palette

Monochromatic Palette

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The color blue has the most variations in monochromatic color palettes. Worldwide Boat uses a range of variations of blue to create an aesthetic email that resonates with its offer of the ultimate yacht experience at sea. The use of tints and shades enhance the overall design of the email, while the copy describing the fanciful ‘things-to-do’ motivates engagement with the strategically placed CTA.

Blue-N-Green Hues

Blue-N-Green Hues

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Blue-green hues are among the recent email design inspiration for their elegance and calming countenance in the dynamic digital landscape. Worldwide Boat leverages these aqua hues and implements them in a visually appealing design with an organic feel, drawing attention to the central message of the email. Actual photographs are neatly woven into the layout to provide authenticity to the email.

Summary

You may be new to email design or looking for new ideas to boost subscriber engagement with your emails. With these inspiring email designs, you can continue to design captivating emails with renewed confidence and a fresh approach.

If you still want to outsource email marketing and let the experts manage it for you while you focus on your core business, consider Inbox Army. We’re one of the leading names in email marketing, and our team of experts will be happy to partner with you.

About Author

Chris sent his first email campaign in 1995. He’s worked directly with Fortune 500 companies, retail giants, nonprofits, SMBs and government agencies in all facets of their email marketing and marketing automation programs. He’s also a BIG baseball fan, loves a good steak, and is mildly obsessed with zombie movies. For more information follow him on linkedin

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