6 Great Examples of Simple Email Design

We encourage readers often to "keep it simple" with their email design. Don't make your email look like a website. Make it easy to scan. Don't get clipped. Simple email design is important because it improves readers' experience. It means your messages don't waste anyone's time. They're easy to understand, the key message is obvious, and it's a no-brainer for readers to see where to click and why. So if you're among the many brands that can afford to de-clutter your emails, we've rounded up an inspiring collection of emails that achieve simple email design, plus the tips we learned for the best kind of simple design.

Pare down your color scheme

One invitation email is big, bold, blocky, and yes, a simple email design. Take a look and see how quickly your eyes scan the information provided. With everything else black and white, a big colored CTA button is hard to miss. By employing design simplicity with a basic color scheme, brands make the information easy to read and the call to action easy to engage with.

Use headers and labels

One roundup email is so easy to scan that you might miss all the subtle design elements that make it work. With a large font size, the main header immediately draws the eye, and being funny and sarcastic makes it immediately engaging. The first module is also the full width of the email, so there aren't any sidebars competing for attention. Then, the email splits into two columns using a hybrid layout, continuing to use headers in a large, bold font, along with a numbered list and color coding — none of which clutters the design, but rather enhances it.

Establish a visual hierarchy

One beauty brand's email uses an "order of operations" product flowchart as its main content, with numbered items and connecting lines that make the content seamless to follow, leading right to an easy-to-spot call-to-action button. While brands should be cautious about their text-to-image ratio, the hierarchy of a simple email design makes it fun to read and easy to follow. An email hierarchy can also be established using a mobile-friendly single-column modular approach.

Include only the text you need

With text in email, sometimes less is more, particularly for visually-driven brands. One food delivery brand focuses on what's most important to readers: the food, comprised of hi-res photos with the name and ingredients of each item, rather than long-winded descriptions. By using a list format and cutting down on text, the email is super reader friendly, without an elaborate header, navigation menu, or social media buttons wasting space.

Remove extraneous design elements

White space, when done well, is a thing of beauty. One curated shop uses uniform image sizes to neatly arrange products in a grid, with text along the bottom and bright color labels in the upper right corner, so each item is contained in its own space. As a result, the brand skips lines, borders, or background colors to separate each one, making the simple email design feel clean and light. You don't need a bunch of lines or design elements to create order and organization.

Limit calls to action

Some brands' emails are meant to inspire reflection, where simplicity evokes a real calming effect. Bulletproof, compelling, descriptive CTA buttons that pop are great, but importantly, having only one or two of them improves the chances of engagement. Too many options place the onus on the reader to decide what's most important or urgent; when there are only one or two choices, the decision-making process is simplified for the reader. A traditional inverted pyramid scheme can also help create content organization, alongside short, sweet text and color used as a tool to direct readers' attention.

Wrap-Up: Tips for Simple Email Design

1. Simplify your color scheme. Color is a huge design tool: when you stick to a black-and-white scheme, for instance, adding a pop of color will immediately grab readers' attention.
2. Use headers. Use a font size that's roughly 2x your body text to make your key message prominent.
3. Create hierarchy. Make it obvious for readers what they should see first, then next, then next. Your content should lead directly to a CTA.
4. Pare down text. Say what you mean simply, clearly. Revise until you have only what you need.
5. Embrace white space. When your content is organized well with buffer space, you don't need extra dividers, lines, and shapes.
6. Use only one or two calls to action. It should be obvious to readers what you're inviting them to take action on.