Hello, I need to provide my clients with an email signature design as part of the branding package. What is the best program to set this up in so it can be used across all platforms? Thank you
For maximum compatibility this will have to be a raster file so you could do it in InDesign / PhotoShop and export or save as jpg, png, whatever.
Just a note on attached raster files…
Our company web servers are set not to download imagery in everything, including signatures, as a matter of “privacy” with spam crap (a lot of spam links inform the sender the email has been opened, verifying the addy is active.)
I’m betting we aren’t the only ones doing this.
A raster sig will just show up as a broken link tear sheet.
I have seen this too - the only remaining option is text only so no logos etc.
I just keep it simple in the Gmail signature settings. Use as close to my personal colors as I can or simply include a PDF of the document that’s slightly stylized to my specifics.
Not to derail but how does that go over with people who receive a PDF of a cover letter attached to an email cover letter. Do you read both? Do you trash it for excesssiveness? Do you write them back an email and a PDF to show them how it feels?
Yes, and that’s also the best option.
I would definitely read both.
After reading the body of the email, I’d open the attachment. If the attachment says the exact same thing the body of the email said, I’d think the sender made an error, or is a neurotic over-communicator, or is suffering a loss of faculties. (Notice none of those is a particularly good thing.) By this time, I’ll also have drawn some other conclusions regarding the sender’s intellect based on the substance and presentation of what was written, the redundancy of the attachment notwithstanding. Weighing those conclusions will lead my suspicions toward or away from one of those original reactions (mistake, neurosis, illness).
In the end, the sender would lose in competition to anyone who only asked me to read their letter one time.
For signature’s (in case this isn’t mentioned yet) you’ll want to use web-ready fonts. That way you don’t have to worry about the rasterization problem.
Thanks everyone!
Whenever I include a pdf of the same info that is in the email, I usually say something like…a pdf is attached for your convenience…in my intro paragraph. But I’m not sending out resumes or cover letters
We make sigs as basic HTML and for logos we make them a raster image that is housed on the clients web server so it doesn’t show up as an attachment on every email.
I think, that there is no need to involve designers, learn HTML or hire a developer and have long discussions about such a simple element of your emails. Besides, using email signature creator assures that your email signatures will look good in all major email clients and won’t corrupt in the recipient’s inbox. There are a lot of email signature generators on the Internet, but one of my favourite is free email signature generator for Outlook and Gmail by Activesignatures . Other good tools are Newoldstamp and MySignature. They are free, so everyone may choose the most appropriate one.
It’s very convenient thing.