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3 Incredible Eye-Catchers to Use in Your Designs

By Advanced Design Techniques

Using an eye-catcher is a great way for you to draw attention to a special promotion, highlight key features of a new product, or quickly convey important information to your customers.

Typically, eye-catchers are layered over an image to make it stand out more in your design.

In this video, we show you three creative eye-catcher styles that you can use in your email designs, as well as how you can easy build them in Mail Designer 365...

You can find even more video tutorials on this page.

A Quick Tour of Mail Designer 365

Advanced Design Techniques

Background

Blend Modes

Campaigns

Configuring Text Styles

Creative Tools

Editing Text

Graphics and Other Objects

HTML Export

Image Areas

Images

Layout Blocks

Links and Buttons

Optimizing your Template for Mobile

Other Sharing Options

Plain Text

Preparing your Design for Sending

Preview your Design

Tables

TextScout

Using Retina Images with your Design

 

3 Ways to Use Blend Modes

By Advanced Design Techniques, Blend Modes

Blend Modes allow you to blend images together and create incredible effects for your Mail Designer 365 email designs.

To help get you inspired, this video tutorial shows you 3 awesome use cases for Blend Modes that you can try out in your next design...

You can find even more video tutorials on this page.

A Quick Tour of Mail Designer 365

Advanced Design Techniques

Background

Blend Modes

Campaigns

Configuring Text Styles

Creative Tools

Editing Text

Graphics and Other Objects

HTML Export

Image Areas

Images

Layout Blocks

Links and Buttons

Optimizing your Template for Mobile

Other Sharing Options

Plain Text

Preparing your Design for Sending

Preview your Design

Tables

TextScout

Using Retina Images with your Design

Creating a Sketched Headline Effect

By Advanced Design Techniques

An eye-catching header is all you need to grab readers' attention from the get go. This video tutorial shows you how to create a unique sketched headline effect to use in your email newsletters...

You can find even more video tutorials on this page.

A Quick Tour of Mail Designer 365

Advanced Design Techniques

Background

Blend Modes

Campaigns

Configuring Text Styles

Creative Tools

Editing Text

Graphics and Other Objects

HTML Export

Image Areas

Images

Layout Blocks

Links and Buttons

Optimizing your Template for Mobile

Other Sharing Options

Plain Text

Preparing your Design for Sending

Preview your Design

Tables

TextScout

Using Retina Images with your Design

Creating Call to Action Buttons

By Advanced Design Techniques

The CTA (call to action) button is an essential part of any marketing email. In order for your button to be effective and get readers on to your website, it needs to stand out from the rest of your design.

This video shows you 3 amazing button styles you can try out in your next email design...

You can find even more video tutorials on this page.

A Quick Tour of Mail Designer 365

Advanced Design Techniques

Background

Blend Modes

Campaigns

Configuring Text Styles

Creative Tools

Editing Text

Graphics and Other Objects

HTML Export

Image Areas

Images

Layout Blocks

Links and Buttons

Optimizing your Template for Mobile

Other Sharing Options

Plain Text

Preparing your Design for Sending

Preview your Design

Tables

TextScout

Using Retina Images with your Design

Using hex color values

By Advanced Design Techniques

How to apply hex color values to your email design

As well as our pre-existing colors and color wheel, Mail Designer 365 also gives you the freedom to apply custom colors to your email design using hex codes. This is a great way to ensure your email designs are on brand and consistent.

To get started, select the object you want to color (e.g. a shape) and click on the color wheel icon under the "Style" menu.

Go to the second panel ("Color sliders") and under the dropdown menu, select RGB sliders:

Click on the settings icon and choose "8-Bit (0-255.)" Then select the correct profile for your color. We usually go with "Generic RGB."

Now you can enter your hex code in the space provided.

A Quick Tour of Mail Designer 365

Advanced Design Techniques

Background

Blend Modes

Campaigns

Configuring Text Styles

Creative Tools

Editing Text

Graphics and Other Objects

HTML Export

Image Areas

Images

Layout Blocks

Links and Buttons

Optimizing your Template for Mobile

Other Sharing Options

Plain Text

Preparing your Design for Sending

Preview your Design

Tables

TextScout

Using Retina Images with your Design

Creating polygons and polygrams

By Advanced Design Techniques

Creating Polygons And Polygrams

Maybe you want to a different shape other than the pre-made ones under the Basic Shapes. We will show you how to create your own polygons and polygrams. Add an image area to your template if you have not already done so. Go to "Contents."

Then, in the layout tab, scroll down to "Image areas:"

Drag a layout block with an image area into your template. It is up to you how many image areas you want. In this example, we will use a layout block with 2 image areas:

Feel free to adjust the size of your image areas according to your needs. Just drag the resize controls to the appropriate direction (up, down, right, left):

 

 

Once you finished adjusting the size of your image areas, go to the "Contents" section again:

Then, click on the "Shape" button:

Polygons

For polygons, we recommend choosing the rhombus/diamond shape under the "Basic Shapes:"

Drag the rhombus shape into an image area:

 

You can adjust the size of the shape by dragging the resize controls towards the direction you want the shape to expand to:

 

You can choose to change the fill style of your shape, whether you want a solid color or a gradient:

Don't forget to choose the color that you want:

On the right side, under the "Style" section, you will notice a slide bar for the number of sides:

You can slide this bar to the number of sides that you want. The maximum number of sides is 12, so you can turn the shape all the way into a dodecagon.

Here is a pentagon:

 

Hexagon:

 

Heptagon:

Octagon:

Nonagon:

Decagon:

Undecagon/Hendecagon/Endecagon:

Dodecagon:

 

Polygrams

If you want to use a polygram, go to the "Contents" section.

Then, click on the "Shape" button:

Choose the star-shaped shape:

 

Drag the shape into an image area:

Adjust the size of your shape by dragging the resize controls towards the direction you want the shape to expand to:

You can also change the fill of the shape. In this example, we are going to change it to gradient:

You can also change the color of the shape:

On the right, you will notice a slide bar for the number of tips. Here, you can slide it to change the number of tips your polygram will have. In this example, we turned the polygram into a pentadecagram (15 tips):

 

The maximum you can have is 20 tips (icosagram):

You can also adjust the indentation with the indentation slider:

 

To make the shape more concave, slide the indentation slider to the left.

To make the shape more convex, slide the indentation slider to the right.

If you were to choose 20 tips and slide the indentation slider all the way to the right, you will get a polygon with 40 sides (Tetracontagon). With Mail Designer 365, you definitely have a lot of room to create the polygon and/or polygram that you want:

 

 

A Quick Tour of Mail Designer 365

Advanced Design Techniques

Background

Blend Modes

Campaigns

Configuring Text Styles

Creative Tools

Editing Text

Graphics and Other Objects

HTML Export

Image Areas

Images

Layout Blocks

Links and Buttons

Optimizing your Template for Mobile

Other Sharing Options

Plain Text

Preparing your Design for Sending

Preview your Design

Tables

TextScout

Using Retina Images with your Design

 

 

 

 

 

Grouping design elements

By Advanced Design Techniques

Why group design elements together?

Grouping elements together makes it easier to simultaneously move the objects that belong together within your email.

To group elements together

Drag across two or more elements to select them together and then click “Group” from the bottom of the sidebar.

Or hold the command key and click on the objects you want to group. After you select all of your desired objects, then click "Group."

Grouping example

Here we’ve selected 3 elements: the “Sale” text, the description, and price and the strikethrough line:

You can now move the elements around together. All of the elements will be treated as a single element, making it much easier to move them:

Ungroup the included text objects

Several of the text objects that we include are images and text objects grouped together. You can ungroup these for greater control over the look of a certain element – just click “Ungroup” from the sidebar:

 

A Quick Tour of Mail Designer 365

Advanced Design Techniques

Background

Blend Modes

Campaigns

Configuring Text Styles

Creative Tools

Editing Text

Graphics and Other Objects

HTML Export

Image Areas

Images

Layout Blocks

Links and Buttons

Optimizing your Template for Mobile

Other Sharing Options

Plain Text

Preparing your Design for Sending

Preview your Design

Tables

TextScout

Using Retina Images with your Design

Moving objects to the front or back

By Advanced Design Techniques

Once you start combining design elements, you may want to place certain objects in image areas in front of or behind other objects.

Move objects from the front to the back and vice versa

Click on the graphic element that you want to move. You will notice that Mail Designer 365 will open the "Style" tab automatically on the right.

Within the "Style" tab, you will see buttons labeled Back, Front, Backward, Forward:

Select an object and click the “Front” or “Back” button in the sidebar.

For more granular control over your layers, you can also choose between “Backward” or “Forward.”

 

Using the mouse...

For instance, in order to place this “Get the App” text object in front of image, you can either right-click it and choose “Bring Forward” or click "Forward" in the sidebar.

That will place it in front of the image:

 

 

A Quick Tour of Mail Designer 365

Advanced Design Techniques

Background

Blend Modes

Campaigns

Configuring Text Styles

Creative Tools

Editing Text

Graphics and Other Objects

HTML Export

Image Areas

Images

Layout Blocks

Links and Buttons

Optimizing your Template for Mobile

Other Sharing Options

Plain Text

Preparing your Design for Sending

Preview your Design

Tables

TextScout

Using Retina Images with your Design

Combining design elements

By Advanced Design Techniques

You can create interesting effects by combining multiple design elements. With Mail Designer 365, you are able to arrange objects in layers. This means that you can stack objects on top of each other for eye-catching designs.

Easily create graphic combinations

Let’s say we have a big sales event on July 16th that we want to announce. We can highlight that date visually by combining the calendar text element with a graphic element. Mail Designer 365 makes highlighting specific dates easy!

Drag in the July Calendar text object in an image area:

Now go to the graphics. Drag the black marker circle onto the calendar:

Finally, grab the black circle by the orange adjustment handles, resize it, and then click and drag it into position over July 16th.

Perfect! A great visual reminder to let customers know to check out the event on July 16th!Have fun with combining different graphic elements.

Regardless of what combinations you want to create, remember to drag in the elements in an image area!

 

 

A Quick Tour of Mail Designer 365

Advanced Design Techniques

Background

Blend Modes

Campaigns

Configuring Text Styles

Creative Tools

Editing Text

Graphics and Other Objects

HTML Export

Image Areas

Images

Layout Blocks

Links and Buttons

Optimizing your Template for Mobile

Other Sharing Options

Plain Text

Preparing your Design for Sending

Preview your Design

Tables

TextScout

Using Retina Images with your Design

Editing images using third party applications

By Advanced Design Techniques

Third party image editors

With Mail Designer 365, you can open certain images  for your image areas in third party applications. Just select the image you want to edit. Then, click ”Edit Image in...” in the sidebar.

Choose the application you want to use for editing. Mail Designer 365 will open your image in the right application.

 

 

A Quick Tour of Mail Designer 365

Advanced Design Techniques

Background

Blend Modes

Campaigns

Configuring Text Styles

Creative Tools

Editing Text

Graphics and Other Objects

HTML Export

Image Areas

Images

Layout Blocks

Links and Buttons

Optimizing your Template for Mobile

Other Sharing Options