Hottest Email Design Trends to Look Forward to in 2022 [Infographic]

As the world of email marketing is evolving at a fast pace, email geeks have started developing newer aesthetic strategies to woo their subscribers. In 2021, we witnessed some novel advancements like phantasmagoric collages, emotional designs, and dark mode.

2022 will see some even more exciting email design trends along with a natural progression of trends like Dark Mode and gradients.

So, let’s discuss the trends which will form a perfect medley of newness, sophistication, and subtlety in the email inboxes.

1. Dark Mode compatible emails

As more and more subscribers view their emails in Dark Mode, email marketers will go for Dark Mode compatible email designs. It will make the content more readable and save the device battery life.

As most Operating Systems and Applications support Dark Mode settings, marketers will extensively adopt this trend in 2022 and the coming years. The expert developers at Email Uplers strongly recommend designing emails keeping the Dark Mode in mind.

Here’s a screenshot to show you how a perfectly designed Dark Mode compatible email should be:

The logo, email copy, CTA, and social media icons have been designed considering Dark Mode settings.

If you are unsure how to design emails for Dark Mode, you can use the Dark Mode neutral color scheme (as shown in the email screenshot by Duolingo) or get in touch with expert developers to help you out.

[Dark Mode neutral color scheme refers to the color combination that will not ruin the subscriber experience even when the colors are reversed in the Dark Mode settings]

2. Minimalistic Email Designs

Many brands have stuck to minimalism to create impactful yet straightforward email designs. With information overload inundating the digital spaces, our attention span is rapidly dwindling. Therefore, minimalistic email designs are getting more popular.

It delivers the message more effectively and makes it easily consumable. With simplistic compositions, brands will use white space more generously than ever.

Take a look at this minimalistic email by Trip Advisor that prompts the users to download their app.

3. Animations in Emails

Let me take you seven years back in time before talking about 2022 trends.

When Dell launched the XPS 12 Convertible Ultrabook, they included an animated image or a GIF, as they call it, in their promotional email.

Through this email, Dell saw a 6% increase in open rate, a 42% increase in click rate, a 103% increase in conversion rate, and a massive boost of 109% in their revenue.

Since then, GIF animations have continued to be the email marketer’s favorite design strategy to garner more engagement and conversions. They have even transcended to 3D and illustrated animations over time.

Illustrations are not just for fun and aesthetics. They are also effective in demonstrating a product or service. Some marketers use it to tell their story more powerfully.

If you are looking forward to adding illustrations in your future emails, here are three innovative ideas to help you out.

1. You can use spot illustration to accompany the text and add visual appeal to your emails.
2. GIF illustrations are the safest bet if you want to show the usage of your product.
3. An illustration can also be used as a divider to break the email copy.

Harry’s nails it with their creative illustrations every time. You can check it out in the screenshot below.

(Also, notice how they have used ample negative space in their email to abide by the principle of minimalism.)

Besides GIFs, CSS3 animations and APNG images will also gain more impetus in 2022.

APNGs are better than GIFs for the reasons mentioned below:

1. APNGs allow you to use the entire range of color depths.
2. They support 8-bit alpha transparency with no ugly white edges at the border of the animations.
3. These animations have a better resolution when compared to GIFs.

The good news is that these animated emails are no longer limited to the Holiday season as subscribers have become more receptive to such designs. No wonder, this trend has stayed on our list for a couple of years now.

4. Soft gradients in emails

Gradients refer to a smooth amalgamation of one color to another. Last year, we saw a significant rise in the usage of gradients in emails.

In 2022, we are expecting this trend to continue with brands taking to soft colors. Many big brands like Litmus have embraced this trend by using a combination of mute colors and gradients to exude subtlety. Now, that’s how you incorporate two of the best-loved email design trends.

The color transitions of gradients help to reinvent new engagement possibilities and guide eye movement by reinforcing visual hierarchy.

Here are three ideas to help you get started with using this trend:

• You can make your copy more readable by using gradients in the typography.
• Gradients can be used in the CTA to generate a better click-through rate and conversions.

5. Micro-interactions in emails

Interactive emails created with the help of CSS5 and other coding tricks can take subscriber engagement to the next level. However, marketers prefer to stay away from this trend, thinking it would make the email slow to load. The solution to this problem is micro-interactions.

Micro-interactions are small interactions such as:

1. Hover effect
2. Swiping and clicking
3. Liking, sharing, saving

Even though these interactions cannot work as the focal point, they bring engagement and support the email copy.

Wrapping Up

Through all these years, I have noticed that emails perform the best when they incorporate a combination of these trends.

Let me sign off with two examples to inspire you:

1. Illustrations in a Dark Mode compatible minimalistic email
2. Micro-interactions in a minimalistic email created in a Dark Mode neutral color scheme

I am sure these ideas will trigger your thought process and give you some excellent email design ideas in line with the 2022 trends.

Source: 6 Email Design Trends for 2022

About the Author!

Kevin George is Head of Marketing at Email Uplers, one of the fastest growing custom email design and coding companies, and specializes in crafting professional email templates, PSD to HTML email conversion and free responsive HTML email templates in addition to providing email automation, campaign management, and data integration & migration services. He loves gadgets, bikes, jazz and eats and breathes email marketing. He enjoys sharing his insights and thoughts on email marketing best practices on his blog.