As we continue through this eventful 2019, there are many newsletter design trends that have already come and gone. But, there are also quite a few that have stuck around, and even more that are just beginning to show up. 

So what are they? Great question. Newsletters are one of the most simple and effective marketing strategies out there, so it’s worth knowing what’s trending and what you should avoid. With that said, here are some of the best 2019 newsletter design trends that you’ve gotta know.

Interactive newsletters

Interactivity has been a trend in the design world for a while now. The reason is as cut and dry as it gets: people love to be entertained. There’s just something about being able to navigate, click, and watch the screen evolve in front of you that just can’t be beaten.

Take this newsletter from Ann Taylor, for example. It has a simple design that allows users to interact with it, see all the new products, and even go straight to the online store. Things like sidebars, drop-down tabs, and shopping links are actually taking off as a trend. This is an interactive email newsletter if I’ve ever seen one. As long as you don’t go overboard with it, this is a great trend to follow.

Simple and clean design

Minimalism is a huge trend in design right now. It’s no big surprise that it’s snuck its way into newsletter design trends, too.

There’s nothing more annoying than getting a newsletter, opening it, and finding an explosion of information that you can’t seem to click away from fast enough. The whole point of a newsletter is to grab someone’s attention quickly and direct them to the announcement.

Something like this simple newsletter design clearly shows the reader that there’s a summer sale, it’s 50% off, and then gives them a link to go shopping. There’s nothing overwhelming or misleading about it. By definition, this is a perfectly simply newsletter, and it does the trick.

Catchy newsletter names

You may think that a name really isn’t part of the design, but I think that the name is the first thing that really grabs the reader’s attention. Amidst the absolute ocean of emails that some of us get daily, the subject lines can easily blend in with the background.

It helps to have a name that people not only recognize as your own but by having a name that stands out. There’s really no guideline for this other than be creative. Overall, you should just try to avoid names like (insert company name)’s newsletter.

Infographics in newsletters

If you absolutely need to give a lot of information, a nice infographic can really help maintain your clean design. One particular style of infographics that a lot of businesses are using is video infographics.

Video marketing, in general, has really rocketed forward in recent years. For many businesses, it’s their main focus. A simple video infographic is an easy way to pump out a lot of your information and still keep the target audience engaged.

Personalization

Creating a newsletter design that is easy to adapt to any reader can be hard to do, but it drives opening rates and engagement like crazy.

A good example of this would be Pinterest. For years now, they have sent you Pins via email based on the things that you like. 

On top of that, they will often use your name in the subject line. It makes it feel less like a corporate cash-grab, and more like a friendly email from a close friend. I don’t know about you, but when scrolling through my inbox, my name in a subject line stands out drastically. Many times, it’s all I look for.

Videos in newsletters

The reason videos work well in newsletters is simple: people love to be entertained. On top of that, listening to a video requires much less effort than reading.

That being said, adding a video to a newsletter can be tricky. If someone has rendering issues, or they can’t watch the video the moment they open it, then they may leave and never come back. There has to be a balance between making the video catchy enough to grab their attention and keep it and being short enough to not waste their time. Basically, keep it short and sweet.

Bright and contrasting colors

A little splash of color never hurt anyone. This statement rings true for a lot of things, but with design, it’s a little more complicated. It’s true that the right colors can really help any design. But, notice I said the RIGHT colors.

Just because you toss in some bright and contrasting colors doesn’t mean that people are going to love it. In fact, if you don’t get the colors almost exactly right, most people are going to hate it.

The colors you choose have to make sense. They have to match your brand’s tone, but they don’t necessarily have to be the brand’s colors. Take this newsletter for example:

We’re all familiar with the trillion-dollar company, Apple. They’re infamous for their simplicity in design. Most of the time, their devices are simple gold, black, grey, or white. It was quite a shock when they released the 5c, simply because they were like nothing Apple fans had ever seen.

Granted, this email newsletter design is a few years old at this point, but you can see the strategy in using these colors. They absolutely pop off the screen at you. They used the phone’s colors to highlight the phones themselves on the screen.

Or, how about this one:

Again, what we have here is an ingeniously implemented design with contrasting colors. They’re not wildly different from each other, but they certainly do a great job of highlighting the products. These colors make sense, and they look good.

Full-width images

Just like the colors, images have become the main focal point of the newsletter in 2019. And, just like the example above with Apple, the images have quickly started to take up the majority of the newsletter.

It makes sense if you think about it. Let your product do the talking for you. Even if you’re newsletter is a software or a simple announcement, you should be confident enough with what you’re proposing in the newsletter. 

This newsletter advertisement is a perfect example of this. The image of the woman in the middle takes up nearly the entire thing, from end to end. 

In fact, this particular design hits on a few of the points we talked about, so we’ll end it here. You have a nice big image, contrasting and bold colors, a simple image, and interactivity.

Get creative

As I hinted at several times throughout this article, creativity is key. Most people will scan their emails, look for only the most important emails, and forget about the rest, newsletters included.

A combination of many or all the design elements above will definitely give you a competitive edge, but don’t forget to play around a little. Just because someone doesn’t open a newsletter email of yours once, doesn’t mean they’ll never do it again. This process will have a lot of trial and error, but you will get the hang of it eventually. Especially is you use these 2019 newsletter design trends.

Color is a big deal when it comes to web design, but it’s not just about looking good. A seemingly inconsequential variation in shade can have a significant impact on conversion rates. That’s because colors have a proven and measurable impact on our attitudes and emotions.

This little crash course in color psychology can help you better connect with your ideal audience and build trust with visitors.

Is Color Psychology Really a Thing?

Yes indeed. In fact, key findings related to the subject have been published in peer reviewed journals. Read one for yourself while science is still legal. Aside from the documented scientific proof, consider all the marketing pros who have split tested countless pages to find that certain color schemes can produce vastly different results in terms of conversion, even when all the content is exactly the same.

You’re wielding a lot of power over the human psyche with your use of colors. The question you need to ask yourself is whether your experiments in emotional manipulation are working for you, or against you.

Grow Your Legions of Minions and Master Mind Control with These Color Rules

Earn Trust by Using Blue:

Even if you’re a grotesquely rich corporate overlord you can help foster trust by using the color blue in your web design. Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook should be enough to convince you of this, but I guess we can look at some actual evidence too.

• Studies have determined that blue is a universally-liked color.
• It promotes feelings of calm and tranquility, according to this credible source.
• Facebook, LinkedIn, PayPal, Twitter and hundreds of other corporate entities use some shade of blue as their primary color.

You’ll see blue a lot in the financial world, particularly among credit card companies. Maybe they’re hoping it will help calm customers down before they call to dispute that ridiculous $200 finance charge.

Red for Pasion and Urgency:

Red gets the blood pumping. It’s a color that promotes passions, energy and urgency. Red is often used to promote clearance sales or to draw attention to CTAs.

Orange Inspires Impulsive Behaviors:

According to the marketing wizards at Kiss Metrics, orange can inspire activity, a sense of urgency and even impulsive behavior. When Amazon tempts visitors with a limited offer, it’s usually highlighted by a bright orange banner.

Black is For Luxury and Sophistication:

If high-end class and sophistication is what you’re going for, black does the trick. Using black is also said to promote a certain edginess, making it a great choice luxury goods, fashion and cosmetics.

White for Clean Simplicity:

White is believed to promote cleanliness, virtue and simplicity. It makes a great backdrop for the healthcare industry – or for anyone who enjoys a clean, minimalist approach to design.

Gray Promotes Professionalism:

Gray comes across as professional and subdued. When used correctly it helps create a balanced and calm effect. Used by white color professionals as well as luxury brands, but works well across a wide span of industry types.

Purple is Powerful on Many Levels:

Purple is seen as a color of majesty, opulence and luxury. It’s often associated with success and respect. This is a go-to color for beauty products, massage, yoga spirituality and feminine brands.

Green for Positivity and Health:

This color is associated with health, nature peace and relaxation. Some experts believe the color green can actually help alleviate depression. It’s also a great color for conversions, as it is said to promote decisiveness.

Yellow Keeps it Warm and Cheerful:

Yellow is a great color when it comes to generating a sense of optimism among your visitors. It’s also a great attention grabber. One rule to keep in mind when implementing yellow is to use it sparingly, as this color can easily become overwhelming.

This Infographic Will Show You How to Use Colors Together and Increase Your Conversions

Are you ready to start using colors to generate more results? Take a look at this infographic to learn more about how to use certain color schemes to drive more participation and action with your web design.

Psychology of Color on Web Design

Read About Web Design Conversion Rate Optimization Here

If you are into front-end development, you can’t escape from two things – jQuery and data visualization. jQuery is one of the most popular JavaScript libraries which is being used by more than 70% of top one million websites (source). And with the increasing amount of data, sooner or later you will have to get your hands dirty with making charts.

That’s why this article combines both – jQuery and creating charts. I am going to walk you through the process of creating beautiful charts using FusionCharts and its jQuery charts plugin. Although I am going to make a radar chart, you can use this process to make any other chart that is part of FusionCharts’ library of 90+ charts as well.

Creating a Radar Chart – 4 Step Process

I have divided the process of making our chart into four easy-to-follow steps. But before we begin, here is a quick look into what we are trying to make:

You can see the live version at this JSFiddle. To view the source-code, click the ‘Edit in JSFiddle’ button on top right of the screen.

Step-1: Get the Data

This is usually the first step for making any kind of chart or graph. For the purpose of this tutorial, I am going to to use dummy data representing allocated budget and actual spending of a company (Acme Inc.).

FusionCharts accepts both JSON and XML data formats. I am going to use JSON as it has now become the standard data exchange format of the web. First we need to define a category array which will contain all the categories under which budget was allocated. It will be an array of objects like this:

"categories": [{
  "category": [{
      "label": "Engineering"
    }, {
      "label": "Sales"
    }
    // more categories
  ]
}]

Next we need to put the data that we want to plot in dataset array. Inside dataset you can have one object for each series of data you want to plot. In our case we have two series – Allocated Budget and Actual Spend.

"dataset": [{
  "seriesname": "Allocated Budget",
  "data": [{
      "value": "10000"
    }, {
      "value": "16500"
    }
    // more data points for first series
  ]
}, {
  "seriesname": "Actual Spend",
  "data": [{
      "value": "8000"
    }, {
      "value": "9500"
    }
    // more data points for first series
  ]
}]

Step-2: Include Dependencies

Our project is dependent on following JavaScript files:

• jQuery – download it from here or include it via CDN.
• 3 FusionCharts JS files: fusioncharts.js, fusioncharts.charts.js and powercharts.js. You can download all the files from this page (see under JS folder).
• jQuery charts plugin – download it from plugin page.

<!-- jQuery -->
<script type="text/javascript" src="jquery.js"></script>

<!-- FusionCharts files-->
<script type="text/javascript" src="fusioncharts.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="fusioncharts.charts.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="powercharts.js"></script>

<!-- jQuery plugin -->
<script type="text/javascript" src="jquery-plugin.js"></script>

Step-3: Create and Select a Chart Container

HTML <div> elements work best for housing a chart. You should have a separate <div> container for each chart on you page. This is how we define a container and select it via jQuery’s $ selector:

HTML:

<div id="radar-chart">Radar chart will load here.</div>

Selecting it via jQuery:

$("#radar-chart")

Step-4: Insert the Chart

We are almost there. Now we just need to use the insertFusionCharts method provided by the plugin to insert the chart into our page. Here is how we do it (explanation after code snippet):

$("#radar-chart").insertFusionCharts({
  type: 'radar',
  width: '100%',
  height: '500',
  dataFormat: 'json',
  dataSource: {
    "chart": {
      "caption": "2015 Budget for Acme Inc.",
      "captionFontSize": "22",
      // more chart configuration options
    },
    "categories": [
      // explained in step-1
    ],
    "dataset": [
      // explained in step-1
    ]
  }
});

Most of the terms in the above code snippet are self-explanatory, so I will keep the description short and to the point:

• type sets the type of chart we want to plot.
• width and height define the dimension of the chart.
• dataFormat sets the format in which we will pass the data (json or xml).
• dataSource contains chart configuration options and the data we want to plot. Chart configuration options will go inside chart object and are technically known as chart attributes (in FusionCharts). dataset and categories arrays were covered in step-1.

Quick Note on Improving Design

If you notice the above code snippet carefully, you will see that our chart object only had two chart attributes, while the source code for the chart has more than 20!

What is happening here?

Well, in reality there are more than 100 different attributes you can use to customize a chart. Since it is not possible to cover everything, I am going to leave you with a resource that will be immensely helpful if you try to customize a chart.

Open this page and type the name of the chart you want to customize. It will open up complete list of attributes that can be used on that chart, along with their short descriptions and acceptable values. For example, to customize a radar chart you will reference radar chart’s page.

That’s it! If you were following along and did everything I described above, you must have got a working chart by now. If not, head over to the JSFiddle demo I created and take few mins to understand where you went wrong.

Have any questions? Leave a comment below and I will be glad to help!

What code should I learn is a popular infographic that gives newbie developers a visual guide to choosing a new language to learn. We believe it also comes in handy for web designers who are sometimes less knowledgeable of the multitude of code languages, terminology and in-depth capability of certain languages. For web designers, it is just as handy to have this What Code Should I Learn Infographic on hand to have a basic understanding for code languages and their use.

It’s also a great reference if you are considering making the investment in learning new code. It offers everything from a salary guide, its origin, and the most common uses for the code. View the full infographic for a complete overview. Share a new fact you learned, or any additional knowledge you think is missing from the infographic in the comments below.

A lot of brand new eCommerce owners are struggling to make their first sale. It’s not uncommon, but it’s also nothing to have looming over your incipient business.

The number one question I get on a daily basis is:

“I started a new company but no orders are coming in. What should I do?”

I advise new eCommerce entrepreneurs to forget marketing for a bit and focus on sales. Precise sales tactics allow you to target potential clients and sell directly to them.

You don’t need a lot of traffic on your store for that either.

The following infographic will explain everything and help you come to terms with building an audience to make your first sale(s) happen smoothly and expeditiously.

You can click the image below to see a full-size version of the infographic.

Infographics have become all the rage with Internet lovers. They provide quick & easy factual information related to a certain topic. I have always loved the idea but never thought it would catch on so quickly. Looking over Google you can find so many examples of refined infographics on nearly any subject.

But there are also many designers who want to get into the craft. Making your own infographic is very hard work, since you’ll need to do research on topics to gather statistics & data. But if you are fairly well-versed in a subject then it is obviously worthwhile trying your hand at some different graphics. Check out these online resources and see if you can learn anything new about the art of infographic design.

Piktochart

First up we have Piktochart which is an online webapp for creating infographics. The website is seriously fantastic and it provides a lot of staple features you would expect such as templates and graphic icons. There are some other premium account plans which offer better templates and no watermark branding.

However when just getting started I think Piktochart is a fun application to play with. You can study how other designers are making charts in the user showcase. By practicing with some of your own ideas it can be really easy to generate quality infographics with a bit of practice.

easel.ly

To compare another online infographics builder, the website Easelly is beautiful with its own full showcase gallery. Designers may publish their full infographics or templates onto the website and share them with the world. But you can also edit these infographic templates to setup any data formats you like! It is really easy and certainly the best tool for newbies.

My favorite part about Easel.ly is the large user-contributed showcase. This contains many template files which you can revamp to look like your own custom infographic. But there are also many fully-completed GUI sets which are submitted for inspiration. Their online visual editor tools are not difficult and they grow on you quickly, with a bit of practice. Plus you can get started without even signing up for an account.

Infogram

The new startup Infogram provides another beautiful interface to mockup your own infographics online. The website is currently in beta, yet does allow for open signups from anyone. There are a number of pre-formatted templates which you can build upon.

Also you can organize creations into various libraries for sharing. With a pro plan you can even download infographics as full PNG/PDF files. Infogram comes across like a more advanced web application for designers who want a premier infographics editing suite. The pro plan runs at $18/month or $180/year which may not be feasible for everyone. But even their free online editor is worth playing around to see what kind of tools are at your disposal.

Visually

What infographics resource article could be complete without mentioning Visually? This site has grown very quickly to include a number of dedicated members who design, gather data, and publish content online. Visually isn’t just a sharing network for data visualisations. It is a meeting ground where you can work with others to create your own infographics.

The website has a marvelous online gallery which includes hundreds if not thousands of different examples. These infographics are often shared elsewhere on the web, but get republished into Visually as an archive. It can be fun going through all the categories to see what designers have created.

But as I mentioned earlier, Visually really offers some quality services for creating infographics. You do not need to be a designer or a researcher to put together all the sources. Check out the Visually marketplace for some detailed price guidelines. Even smaller projects may end up costing over $1,000 so it’s not exactly cheap, but glossing over their past examples it is safe to assume you will get what you pay for.

Vizualize.me

Here we have another web application in beta called Vizualize.me. The site is dedicated more towards online resumes than infographics. But the design styles are formatted just like you would expect to see in an infographic – stats, organized data, charts, and other such graphical elements.

I think Vizualize is opening into a new market which hasn’t really been needed until recently. Resume’s have usually been created in a word processor with static text. It is only recently with the popularity of the Internet have we seen a rise in graphically-enhanced resumes. The site is still very small but it’s growing fast, and certainly worth paying attention to see what else the team has planned for the future.

Freebie Resources

Along with these online web applications it is worthwhile to mention some freebies you can download. All of these resources are PSD or AI files which contain infographic templates & common interface items. The GUI kits are fantastic because you can play with shapes and graphs to learn how you might design your own.

Infographic Vector Elements

MediaLoot Vector Infographic Kit

Oil Theme Business Infographic Vector

Elements of Food Infographics Vector

Closing

There are likely many other freebies to be found elsewhere online. This collection is a great way to get started practicing your own ideas with other designer’s GUI kits. I would highly recommend skimming the other resources listed here since most are devoted to online infographic design. Also if you know of similar resources I may have missed, please feel free to share with us in the post discussion area below.

Infographics are a good way to turn some boring data into an informative attractive graphic which is easier for a reader to digest. With the rise of the visual web, the number of infographics on various topics increases day by day. I handpicked 20 web design infographics that feature useful tips and tricks, trends, and other interesting information you ought to know.

Here you’ll find infographics about time management, creating a perfect landing page, do’s and don’ts of website, mixing different typefaces, usability, latest design and visual trends, responsive design, choosing ideal hosting and much more. Click on the images to see each infographic in the full size.

Waste Time at Work Infographic

The History of Web Design

24 Hours In The World Of Web Content

How To Make A Great Landing Page For Your Business Website

How to Start a Web Design Project

Website Dos and Don’ts

The Creation Process for Websites

The Art Of Mixing Typefaces Google Fonts Edition

10 Ways to Design a Landing Page that Sells

26 Things To Note Before You Develop A Website

What makes someone leave a website?

The Ultimate How-To Guide to Responsive Email Design

What Type Of Hosting To Choose

Anatomy of the Perfect Banner Ad

Shutterstock’s Global Design Trends 2014

The Psychology of Color for Web Designers

How To Keep Your Creativity Flowing

Infographic: 2014 visual trends

10 Tips For Effective Visual Communication

Keeping it Simple with Responsive Web Design