Designing a email invitation

[irishgrizzly]

I've been asked to design a brochure and email invitation for an event. I've never done an email invitation before. Does anyone know the best way to do one? I'm imagining the kind apple send – images and text. Can this be done in Dreamweaver? How do I ensure it can be seen properly on everyones mail client?

 

[bigus7674]

email invitation

What you may want to do is go through your own personal email and anything that gets sent to you from companies, such as LaCie, LL Bean, etc usually have the answer you are looking for.

Most companies actually set up a webpage that has all of that information built onto it, and then the email that is sent out simply just has an http: link that that page embedded into the email so that once the person opens the email, and obviously there is an internet connection, the page will automatically direct itself to the http: link and grab that page.

I've done one before, but unfortunately it's been quite some time ago. I would Google the subject to find the specifics, or if you view the source of any of those emails you may have in your own inbox, you can see how they set it up.

EDIT: I believe you actually set up the webpage and then copy the source code and paste it into the email. You then have to change any links to include the http:// part so that it knows to go out on the internet and not look locally on the computer. Again, I would Google for specifics or review and newsletters or ads you get in your own inbox.

 

[irishgrizzly]

Great reply, thanks for that!

 

[bigus7674]

one more thing...

one more thing to keep in mind - not everyone's email program can, or is set up to, display html information. it's just inevitable - some ppl don't want to be bothered with html ads and images bombarding them when they're checking email. So, with that in mind, you may want to do a "double design" in that do the html version and copy that code and paste it into the email message, etc and then underneath that..have a text-only invitation as well that way if the html page doesn't load or show up, they have the regular text there as well that they at least have the option of reading if interested.

 

[Dunepilot]

one more thing to keep in mind - not everyone's email program can, or is set up to, display html information. it's just inevitable - some ppl don't want to be bothered with html ads and images bombarding them when they're checking email. So, with that in mind, you may want to do a "double design" in that do the html version and copy that code and paste it into the email message, etc and then underneath that..have a text-only invitation as well that way if the html page doesn't load or show up, they have the regular text there as well that they at least have the option of reading if interested.

The free templates, html email guide and service provided by mailchimp.com are really great for this sort of thing. I used this in a previous job.

 

[irishgrizzly]

Hi, thanks for all the replies – very useful!

I ended up downloaded Thunderbird email client, as it has lots of options for formatting tables and elements. I now wondering about the images. I've got to send this on to my client and she will forward the mail on. I've uploaded the images to a server and used the absolute address as this is the safest way to ensure they show. But when I mail a test to myself (to replicate what will happen when she receives it) the images are sent from a local folder and embedded in the mail. I'm worried the same will happen for my client the the images may be blocked after she mails them on.

Anyone know a way to keep the absolute (http://...) address to link the images?