Mail Designer

How the new Mail Designer Pro 3.0.3 update perfects your newsletter Design

The hotter the weather, the hotter the features. With the current Mail Designer Pro update, users can look forward to 3 new productive features.

Brand new layout blocks for headers with logo and navigation menu links

Feature your most important links in the header of your layout as you would on a webpage: It’s easy to do with the new layout blocks. Just add your logo on the left and next to it your important links, such as contact, store, etc…

Strike! Use strike-through formatting on your text – perfect for sales prices and other eye-catchers

Perfect for sales prices, showing the old price with a strike through it. Just select the desired text, chose the Strike function – done.

More space for your Design: Paragraph spacing

Set the amount of space to leave before and after your text paragraphs – for nicer formatting and improved readability. You no longer need to work with placeholders before and after your text layout blocks.

The new Mail Designer Pro 3.0.3 is now available for download.

The Mail Designer Team looks forward to your feedback and suggestions for new features. 

PDFs with a click: We’ve revised the PDF export engine as part of the latest Mail Designer Pro update. Now it’s very easy to export all of your design ideas as high quality, single, full page PDFs. 

Perfect for printing flyers and posters or posting cool news on Facebook. You’d like to use Mail Designer Pro to brainstorm a webpage sketch idea and integrate the results as part of your presentation? With the PDF export, it’s no problem! Now you have even more creative opportunities to make a good impression.

We’ve also improved performance and have included some surprise, creative inspiration. Here’s what’s new…

• What could be better than 71 Design Ideas? 72! We’ve added a new Design Idea “Furniture”
• Set the corner radius for rectangles and number of points on stars in the sidebar
• HTML export: We now remember your export folder name
• Hold down the shift key when using the resizing controls to increment in 10px steps
• Designs sent via MailChimp are more compatible with a range of email apps
• Rotated objects now have correct shadows
• Improved cooperation when exporting to Apple Mail

Mail Designer Pro 3 is now available at an introductory price of only 49.99 Euros until 07/01/2016.

It doesn’t matter if you are designing a newsletter for the latest sales campaign or a cool series of events, our greatly improved creative tools in Mail Designer Pro will give you the inspiration you need for all your mailings. Here are 4 of our favorite new features in Mail Designer Pro 3…

1. Stay sharp! How to create Retina optic for your newsletters

Sharpen your senses: Mail Designer Pro keeps it in detail. Now you can create desktop and mobile newsletters which arrive crisp and clear in your recipients inbox.

Go to File then Design Options and tick the checkboxes, Create retina images and Create retina images for desktop.

You’ll need to use high resolution pictures. Make sure to double the pixel size of picture sizes. So if your mobile design has a width of 320px, the used picture must be at least 640px wide.

2.  Pick up (all) the pixels! Be even more precise with our latest graphic tools

By using refined design elements, your newsletter is bound to make a great impression. Call-to-action buttons, cool layers, or self-made video placeholders – you can create all of these yourself with Mail Designer Pro. The expanded sidebar increases the ease in which you can access layout blocks, shape tools, fonts, and background pictures.

Just like with professional graphic programs, shapes can be created pixel perfectly and positioned precisely. Once you’ve created a new shape element, the exact pixel measurements are immediately seen on the sidebar.

It’s possible to regulate the desired size, pixel by pixel. Maintaining proportions is also easy by simply ticking a checkbox. Now you’ll also find the rotating and mirroring tools for your shapes, directly under the measurements.

3. How to create newsletters to “involve” your readers: freely position background graphics

Now you can give every newsletter the perfect mood.  It doesn’t matter if it’s an event invitation, a summer sale, or an annual update. Once you’ve found a stylish motif for your background, click the paint-roller icon on the bottom left of your screen to switch into background mode.

Drag your desired picture into the middle of your design template. By holding down the mouse button, it’s now possible to move the background into the best possible position.

On the side bar on the right, you’ll find a zoom controller, which you can use to enlarge or minimize the size of your picture. It’s time to explore new horizons!

4. Winning titles: How to give your fonts more style

Web fonts are cool, but you can make them even cooler by adjusting the font weights. Now with Mail Designer Pro 3, it’s even easier to define font weights.

You can choose between email safe fonts, web fonts, and your own fonts. Add a new fallback font to your main fonts by clicking Add fallback font. This way you’ll be sure that a nice substitute font will be used in case your recipient does not have the chosen font in their system.

For the web fonts, there is a drop-down menu to choose available font weights. For example, It looks great when you choose a very modern, thin font weight. Try it out with the style fonts, Works Sans, Quicksand, or Josefin Slab.

Go for it! Our expanded style refill offers more than 20 brand new newsletter design ideas (in total: 70), making it easy to turn any template into your very own exciting newsletters in only 5 minutes.

The new Mail Designer Pro 3 is now available for a special introductory price of only 49.99 Euros. You can download and test the demo here for free.

Your newsletters deserve the highest level of quality possible. Mail Designer Pro 3 refines the professional layout and design tools in Mail Designer Pro with professional designers in mind, adds Apple Mail integration and now includes over 70 Design Ideas.

The newly optimized Mail Designer Pro 3 now works with improved resolution and pixel perfect graphic tools which makes it easy to create desktop newsletters using high definition retina. Whether being viewed on a computer screen or on any mobile display, every one of your designs will remain sharp, down to the last pixel.

With now more than 70 inspirational, ready-to-use design ideas, nearly pays for itself…

That’s new in Mail Designer Pro 3:

Pixel-perfect graphics tools: determine the size and position of design elements with accuracy

Desktop retina: Send gorgeous retina graphics to retina Macs as well as retina smartphones

Streamlined sidebar: All design tools, grouping controls and layer options are now easily accessible via the sidebar

Send desktop Mails directly with Apple Mail: Send your newsletter designs directly from Apple Mail (desktop layout only)

Flexible Font Weights: Set specific font weights for any text – even works with over 500 web-fonts

Background reposition and zoom: Adjust your newsletter’s background image to show exactly what you want

Desktop email previews: Check out your newsletter in live MacBook, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro previews

Improved HTML export workflow: Set a image URL and custom HTML file name per document

Design Idea Categories: We’ve now organized all newsletter projects into categories: Sales, Announcements, Events & Transactional

Text Styles re-imagined: Now with support for fallback fonts and on-the-fly re-ordering

Updated HTML engine: With improved compatibility for all major email apps and services

Quick tips in the app: Learn to use Mail Designer Pro in minutes with our quick tips documents

Get the Mail Designer Pro 3 now!
(Mac OS X 10.9 or later required).

We’re excited to launch Mail Designer Pro 2.6 – it’s got some great new features and a lot of improvements we hope you’re going to love. Let’s dive in:

iPad Pro and iPhone SE Device Previews

We’ve added three new mobile device previews for the latest iOS devices: Make sure your newsletters look great on the 12.9” iPad Pro, 9.7” iPad Pro as well as on the iPhone SE.

Scaling option for Mobile Previews on your MacBook

Mail Designer Pro 2.6 introduces a new scaling option, so you can fit any iOS device on your Mac’s screen. Want to check out your design on the 12.9” iPad, but using an 11” MacBook Air? No problem.

Smart Link Checking with the preflight feature

The built-in preflight feature goes through your design and checks things like image size, retina image and all links. We’ve made the link checking much smarter and fixed a few cases where custom URL types weren’t checked correctly.

Improved HTML engine

A lot of work has gone into the new HTML engine in Mail Designer Pro 2.6: We’ve redesigned the way our layout is built and fixed a number of alignment issues, such as those that you could occasionally see in Outlook. In our Mail Designer Pro What’s new section you will find more details about the engine improvements.

Mail Designer Pro 2.6 is now available at a special introductory price of only 49.99 Euros in the  equinux Online Store and in the Mac App Store.

Flashback – Close your eyes. Can you remember the smartphone you had 5-6 years ago? You know, those times when you strolled around the city while surfing the web on your iPhone with 3GS? Back then, an iPhone had a measly resolution of only 480×320 pixels. Now hop back into the time machine! In the meantime, the iPhone 6s Plus has reached a whopping resolution of 1920×1080 pixels! Smartphone screens have become so much sharper, quicker, and more sensitive. Whether you’re carrying an iPhone 6s, a Nexus 6 or a Galaxy 7, the pixel density is so high that you’ll hardly believe your eyes.

This is even more reason why your mobile friendly newsletters need to stay crisp and sharp, down to the last detail. Here are 3 Mail Designer Pro tips to help you achieve just that:

1. Totally broad: Find the right width for your mobile newsletters
In order to display as much as possible on mobile screens, the width of your newsletter can easily be adjusted in Mail Designer Pro. You can find the settings File > Mobile Options. Based on our experience, an average width of 375 is usually best.  This covers smaller displays and the iPhone 6s pixel-perfectly. Your newsletter will come across crisp and clear on the iphone 6s, with its higher resolution, yet an outer white border remains. In settings, you’ll need to check the box, Create Retina images.

2. Export high resolution pictures for your mobile version 

When creating pictures for the mobile versions of your newsletters, you must always use the double width of the picture which you previously adjusted under Mobile Options. For a mobile newsletter with a width of 375px, you’ll have to use a picture with at least 750px. It can also be larger, leaving room for scaling.

Using Pixelmator, Adobe Photoshop, or Affinity Photo, you can export your pictures as a PNG with a screen resolution of 150 dpi (bzw. 144dpi in Photoshop). Now you can take your PNG picture and drag it into the picture place holder of a mobile layout block.

When you select the picture, you can view the original resolution by right clicking and choosing Original Size. A red “2x” symbol warns you in case pictures happen to be too small for a Retina presentation.

3. Individually adjust image compression in mobile newsletters
Using lots of high resolution pictures can cause the data volume of your newsletter to add up quickly. If you’d like to minimize the data for individual pictures, you can adjust the compression by going to Menu > Edit > Optimize Image. Switch the tab Format from automatic to JPEG. Then you can adjust the quality down to a value of 75%. Now you’ve definitely reduced the amount of data.

Digital mailboxes are the catwalk for today’s email marketers. You only have a short time to make an impression for your Spring SALE or your up-coming event. It’s time to get your newsletters into shape! These 7 Mail Designer tips are sure to make your next campaign a hit!

1. Word up  – 3 new Design fonts you absolutely need

• Geometria
• Sofia Pro
• oder Cavia Dreams.

2. Call for Colors – become a master in color matching
Which colors are hip and which fit together? Usually, you just need the right combination. If you’re looking for some good color schemes, check out the Web Color Generator coolors.co. Pull out some cool spring hues and match them with stylish Design colors. So much inspiration!

Do you prefer material Design colors? Then give www.materialui.co/colors a whirl.

3. Get the Look: How to create cool picture leads in minutes
Pictures and photographs build a relationship between newsletter and recipient. Dynamic content gives you a greater share in your campaign. Mail Designer gives you many possibilities for how you can put yourself directly into the scene.

Drag your lead picture into an image area. To make it more attractive and easier to see a text, first choose a geometric shape to lay over the picture and adjust the color transparency to around 25%. Then you can integrate your text into the upper most area, making it more visible.

3. Shake your hips – How to create GIF animations in only seconds 
Make a great impression with some hot moves in a GIF animation. If you only need to capture a short bit for a tutorial, then give Record it a go.  Just choose your screen section, record, and a GIF is automatically created. If you already have a video, then the quickest possibility is Drop to GIF. App:  your video in  – GIF comes out – it’s that easy!

5. Layout blocks and make up – This trick gives your newsletter more depth

Bring more depth to your newsletters by connecting pictures from two image areas. With this trick you can create more elegant and interesting transitions. Just copy your chosen picture twice into two image areas arranged above one another.

Now you can move them around and adjust them just the way you want. One very effective way is to use a white background for the lower image area and a mood picture as a background for the upper image area – as seen in the example picture.

6. How to create touchy call-to-actions buttons you have to push

Shape

 Clear, rectangular shapes with large font are the standards for most buttons. However, in some areas, a round Call-to-action button can look very elegant and be super click friendly. Give it a try for for videos, downloads, or sales!

Color

Not only the shape can affect the effectiveness of a of a button, but also the chosen colors. It’s best to test the colors for effectiveness depending on the your own brand or your specific purpose.

RED  has an alarming impact and is energetically charged
BLUE conveys trust and security at first glance
YELLOW arouses interest and has a positive, sunny effect
GREEN stands for relaxation, sustainability, and growth
ORANGE s buoyant, motivating, and conveys motion

7.  Why real text links are still in

Apple introduced 3D Touch along with the new iPhone 6s. If you build text links into your mobile newsletters, iPhone 6s users can catch a preview glimpse of your website with only a short touch. It’s possible to jump directly to map apps with a link or to automatically add dates into your calendar. In the Style Palette from Mail Designer Pro, you’ll find tools to help make your text links more interesting. Find out more about Peek and Pop Design this in this article.