Emailer: A Fresh Pick for Stephanie Mullins

BY Erika Siegfried 13 September 2016

Nashville food photographer Stephanie Mullins came to us in need of a new template for her mass emailer. Stephanie’s work is pretty delectable, so she needed a design as appetizing as her photos to make mouths water.

We knew Cue Karen Yee, one of our very talented graphic designers, would be a perfect match for Karen’s fresh and elegant aesthetic. Karen started by looking over Stephanie’s old designs and then mapping out her goals for the future. Stephanie was looking for clean, image-driven layouts that would appeal to more commercial clients. She wanted something that was eye-catching, yet still served up her enticing images front and center. Karen knew that she’d have to find a design that would maintain the prominence of food photos, while still looking modern and neat.

Stephanie Mullins' old emailer featuring a picture of soup and rice. — **_{Stephanie’s old emailer layout}**

Moving forward, two things were clear:

Make the images the main course
Keep up with Stephanie’s naturally clean and light aesthetic, while utilizing her stylish logo (which WM also designed)!

Karen mocked up three initial concepts for the emailers and sent them over for Stephanie to chew on (pun intended). Take a look at Karen’s first three mockups below:

The first option for Stephanie Mullins' first mockup for her emailer. — **_{First mockup: Option 1}**

The second option for Stephanie Mullins' first mockup for her emailer. — **_{First mockup: Option 2}**

The third option for Stephanie Mullins' first mockup for her emailer. — **_{First mockup: Option 3}**

Stephanie liked the ingredients of all three emailer mockups. She opted for a combination of them, as well as the light yellow border in concept two, which complements her branding. It also makes her logo pop in a new way. She enjoyed how the last content block in concept three would feature a blog post, saying that it would really help inspire her to keep up with posting new content on her blog. For the final ingredient, Karen added a quote to the emailer, helping to show Stephanie’s personality and passion for food instead of just making it another contact link. Check out Stephanie’s final emailer below:

The final design for Stephanie Mullins' first mockup for her emailer. — **_{Stephanie’s final emailer design}**

Once Stephanie was happy with the design, it was time to implement the project into MailChimp. The design shifted a little bit in MailChimp for mobile optimization purposes, but it looks great and is displayed nicely across all devices, which is crucial. Now, Stephanie is able to send the emailers and more importantly, use the template for future updates she can do herself. She is ready to use her fresh new look to connect with clients and we couldn’t be happier to have served her this recipe for success!