Newsletter design trends

Wondering what 2013 will bring when it comes to ezines and the way they look? Let's take a look at 5 trends for the year ahead.

Me Through My iPhone, araza123

1. More, bigger, better images. With more readers reading emails on both sides of the size spectrum (30" monitors are becoming more common even as more people read their email on their phones and other mobile devices), big, colorful, professional images will be front and center. In the past, email newsletter designers often used small images to make more room for text... but, as they say, "a picture is worth a thousand words" and with faster internet speeds, bigger monitors, and shorter attention spans, attention-grabbing images will take center stage. (Plus, the bigger images/less text combination looks better on smaller screens, too.)
2. More polish. Readers are getting ever more design conscious. They notice when design is good... and when it's bad. This means that they give more of their attention to great design, which in turn, means newsletter designers will have to step up their game--and they will--in order to get attention.
3. More color. Color is free in electronic design, and the surge in color in clothing will definitely begin to trickle into more color in email newsletter design as well. Expect to see bolder, more vivid colors in larger swaths than ever before. Gone is the tiny "pop" of color--2013 is the era of Big, Bold Color Use.

4. 

   by Chris Piascik

   More hand-drawn elements. As technology influences every sector of our lives, expect to see more focus on personal touches like hand-drawn elements. Already a big trend in web design, we anticipate email newsletter designs to follow suit and start picking up hand lettered elements, custom drawn illustration, and other created-by-hand features.
5. More plain text. Talk about extreme! But, as more readers start reading email newsletters on the go, on mobile devices, expect to see more publishers switch back to plain-text only newsletters so they don't have to hassle with making their emails look great on every screen. Alas, plain text is boring, but it does get the message across, and it's definitely easier than trying to create something that looks great for everyone.

So, these are our predictions for trends in email newsletter design for 2013.