Are You Tastefully Driven?

Are you Tastefully Driven? That is the question I pose to you. We’ve defined Tastefully Driven as follows:

taste·ful·ly driv·en - to desire, appreciate, and enjoy high quality products, services, places, and experiences that improve your life and the life of those around you

I would like give you some updates from the areyou.tastefullydriven.com blog.

Tastefully Driven Hotel Pools - There are pools on this list that will amaze you with it’s scenic beauty and design.

Tastefully Driven Watch Brands - These watch brands that are all known for its quality and designed for those who understand what Tastefully Driven is.

Tastefully Driven Mobile Phones - There are 5 phone listed here that will not disappoint a tech geek, I can see why these phones were selected to be Tastefully Driven.

Tastefully Driven Athletes - There are athletes that represent Tastefully Driven and there are those that do NOT, check this list.

So are you Tastefully Driven?

Designing for Emails

I’ve been doing web design for a few years now and I think I got a decent grasp on how to design with valid CSS. The past few weeks have been completely different since I’ve been designing for emails. It’s like taking a step backward in the evolution of web design when you design for emails due to the fact that many of the newer design techniques will not render correctly in emails.

I thought it was hard to design for two or three browsers, now I have to design for different desktop email software and web based email. This means I have to get HTML newsletters to render correctly in at least 5 different email programs. Not only is the design an issue, I have to make sure that our newsletters are Can-Spam compliant, because it’s the law. So there’s a lot think about when you are designing a HTML email.

Creating a newsletter has many issues that you must address before you start your campaign. This is what I’ve learned so far:

Can-Spam Compliance

• No false or misleading header information
• No deceptive subject lines
• You must include an opt-out method for you email recipients
• You must identify your email is an advertisement and include a valid physical postal address

Design

• Keep it simple, very simple with HTML table layouts and inline styling
• Make sure you have valid HTML
• No Javascript
• Test your email design in browsers first
• Test in web based emails Yahoo!, GMail, Hotmail, etc…
• Test in desktop email software Outlook, Thunderbird, etc…
• Offer an online version of your email

It’s been a new learning experience designing for emails and I look forward to designing them for the future email campaigns of Pure Adapt, especially for Tastefully Driven which has less than 2 weeks till launch. If you haven’t already signed up for Tastefully Driven, go sign up now for a chance to win a $100 gift certificate at www.TastefullyDriven.com.