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Sophia Skinbjerg
Sophia Skinbjerg 1 August 2016

15 Email Design Inspirations for the Rest of Your Summer

Take advantage of the color, excitement and fun that summer offers and add it to your email designs. It’s sure to be a hit for your subscribers regardless of whether they are laying on the beach or stuck in the office.

Summer is splashed with colour

One of the reasons that summer is amazing is that there is suddenly a burst in colour in everything around us; food, fashion, and yes even emails. Nothing says summer like tropical yellow or beach blue. Use this sunny period to freshen up your emails with some seasonal colours, patterns or prints. Here are some of my favorites from Pinterest:

Here's your email design inspiration for the rest of summerHere's your email design inspiration for the rest of summer

Here's your email design inspiration for the rest of summer

Gifs aren’t just fun – they encourage engagement

I don’t know about you but when I see a gif I can’t help but keep looking until I’ve seen the entire loop. Which kind of makes sites like giphy my kryptonite. But the same applies to emails with gifs; I can’t help looking/reading. There’s some great ones on pinterest that combine both the gif with some summer #flava.

Here's your email design inspiration for the rest of summer

Here's your email design inspiration for the rest of summer

Here's your email design inspiration for the rest of summer

Don’t like the gif? Make it a still.

Because there’s no reason to be boring in the summer.

Here's your email design inspiration for the rest of summer

Here's your email design inspiration for the rest of summer

Tickle your email design inspiration with smaller screens

We know that people aren’t in the office during the summer so why would you limit your designs to devices you know people aren’t on? There’s some absolute great examples on our Pinterest board Splashed for summer. My favorite comes from J.Crew (who in my opinion, always rock the inbox).

Here's your email design inspiration for the rest of summer

Nothing boosts engagement like a giveaway

Because we all know that people will still get the itch to check their inbox even while laying on their beach towel or sipping that mojito.

Here's your email design inspiration for the rest of summer

Summer time = sport time

Which also happens to be a great source of design inspiration. This summer is chock full of global sports events that can be used to add some novelty to your mailings. Just remember to keep it relevant to your own subscribers.

Here's your email design inspiration for the rest of summer

Here's your email design inspiration for the rest of summer

Less is more with design

I’ve talked about this a couple of times in previous posts but it’s worth mentioning once again. Summer is when people are on vacation; they are relaxing and taking time off, away from devices. So make sure your mailings aren’t overwhelming people with a million different CTAs. One or two is enough. Read more about designing your content for summer over here.

Related: How to create call-to-actions that are irresistible

Here are two examples that make me happy to look at them but simultaneously I also want to click through to start buying.

Here's your email design inspiration for the rest of summer

Here's your email design inspiration for the rest of summer

Making your products synonymous with summer is smart (when done well)

I applaud brands that can seamlessly integrate their products or service with a shared experience, like summer. In the example below there’s a bunch of summer activities that we can all imagine doing on a hot summer day. Cleverly, Warby Parker have also paired each activity to one of their sunglasses. Smart right?

Here's your email design inspiration for the rest of summer

Want more?

For more inspiration that’s fresh and splashed in color, go check out our Pinterest board. You won’t regret it.


While I would love to take credit for all these amazing designs, they were sourced from Pinterest. Find the original owners here.

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