Lean Design Blog

Design and coding techniques

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The design of a design system

The design of a design system

Maintaining your design system and keeping it creative.

Rolling out your design system

Rolling out your design system

Auditing current patterns and workflows and having your team join in the process.

A primer on design systems

A primer on design systems

Why you should have one and the main aspects that should be included.

5 core landing page techniques

5 core landing page techniques

How to ensure your landing page seamlessly ties in with email marketing.

Starter email components theme

Starter email components theme

Featuring 10 standard email templates built from common design patterns that come from referencing hundreds of real-world emails.

Newsletter email essentials

Newsletter email essentials

Newsletters are by far the most popular type of email sent out, meant to keep your readers in the know with news and updates.

Engagement email essentials

Engagement email essentials

Loyalty program notifications, product recommendations, and triggered emails for keeping customers engaged.

Helpful email essentials

Helpful email essentials

Providing instructions, offering support options, and asking for feedback on your customer’s overall experience.

Promo/e-commerce email essentials

Promo/e-commerce email essentials

Sales and special offers for your customers, upselling, and abandon cart techniques.

Notification email essentials

Notification email essentials

Before SMS and phone notifications, there were emails, and they are still the most effective way for your customers to get important, timely, notices.

Subscription and payment email essentials

Subscription and payment email essentials

Important member management options and recurring payments.

Confirmation email essentials

Confirmation email essentials

Confirmation emails are some of the most widely read, and are often saved to be referenced at a later time.

Event email essentials

Event email essentials

If you hold an event, email is a great way to inform your audience about it and set their expectations.

Announcement email essentials

Announcement email essentials

If you’re launching something new, why not let your valuable subscribers in on the news?

Welcome/onboarding email essentials

Welcome/onboarding email essentials

The welcome email has the highest open and click-through rates, use it well!

Template technique: handling spacing

Template technique: handling spacing

Maintaining consistent spacing in an email layout.

Template technique: levels of email dark mode

Template technique: levels of email dark mode

How to prepare your template for email clients and their dark mode affects.

Template technique: automatic mobile layout

Template technique: automatic mobile layout

Simple code for globally adjusting any column in an email template for mobile.

Letting go of Outlook for Windows

Letting go of Outlook for Windows

No more tables, no more VML, no more Outlook’s dirty code!

How code is handled by email providers

How code is handled by email providers

Ways that email providers mess with your code and what to do about it.

Designing for a branded email's text only version

Designing for a branded email's text only version

How to account for your email design's text-only output.

No more tables for email

No more tables for email

An approach to eliminating the need for using tables for design structure.

Modular design technique: the 3 phases of template design

Modular design technique: the 3 phases of template design

The design phases towards turning your email design into a design system: structure, branding, modules.

Modular design technique: using standard layouts

Modular design technique: using standard layouts

What do these emails have in common? They all use the same essential layout, each with completely different branded designs.

Making your emails shareable

Making your emails shareable

Adding share links and utilizing meta info.

Sending branded emails with your email client

Sending branded emails with your email client

For sending out designed emails the same way you would send individual emails with your email client.

Starter modular email boilerplate

Starter modular email boilerplate

The framework we use for coding custom email templates that are accessible and lightweight, available as open source.

Dealing with Outlook

Dealing with Outlook

Email clients have improved email rendering throughout the years. Except for Microsoft Outlook. Here’s how to support it and keep your sanity.

Modular design technique: components that work together

Modular design technique: components that work together

How DICK’S Sporting Goods designed their components to be reusable and plug into and along side each other.

Organizing your email design process

Organizing your email design process

3 steps towards systemizing your email’s production.