Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

Back in July, Ben Chesnut over at MailChimp wrote an excellent article on deliverability and rendering. He states that emails are more or less “just miniature web pages” and I couldn’t agree with him more. Any web designer new to the email design-game should not hesitate to read this. Here are a few bullet points to sum up the article:

• Not designing for the preview pane is stupid.
• Assuming the images will display on all clients is stupid.
• Using images to communicate your message is stupid.
• Not testing your email in different email clients is stupid.
• Not including an unsubscribe link, a physical address and privacy policy in your footer is stupid.
• Including Javascript and Flash in your email is stupid.