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Hi, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋
Welcome to Issue #205 of All About Email!
Last week, I was back writing and sharing some tools and code for easy carousels that you can use in your emails!
This week, my final guest author of the summer takes us on a deep dive into typography, with tips, insights and some code!
Take it away, Jay! 👇
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Guest Author - Jay Oram
Jay has been in Digital Marketing for almost 20 years, with the last 8 years focused on Email Development.
He is the Head of Dev at ActionRocket and works with a team of talented CRM professionals.
At ActionRocket, the aim is to create awesome email, and Jay’s main role is to make cool sh*t.
Jay is a Salesforce Marketing Champion, Founding member of the Email Markup Consortium and recently won the ANA EEC Email Marketing Thought Leader of the Year award.
He has recently launched some tools and his own blog, lessonsinemail.com, plus an exclusive for All About Email. He has teamed up with Steven Sayo to launch the Let’s Talk Email podcast!
Typography In Email
The majority of your email will be text, so it is a huge factor in your email not only looking good, but also displaying your information correctly and being accessible to everyone who opens it.
🎉 To get to an awesome-looking email, there are some steps you need to take:
Choosing your Typeface
Choosing your fonts (Yep, that is different to No. 1)
Making sure your text is accessible
Code your typography to work in email
Choosing A Typeface
A typeface is the kind of font you are choosing. The five main types are:
sans-serif
serif
mono-spaced
script
display
(These can be grouped even further into a collection of fonts, such as Helvetica or Georgia.)
Depending on your brand, you may choose a more historical and prestigious serif font such as Georgia. Alternatively, if you are a new AI startup, you’re more likely to align with a clean and modern sans-serif font such as Verdana.
💡 Whichever typeface you choose, you’ll need to figure out a family of fonts to use across email clients, and this is often not included in most brand guidelines.
Choosing Your Fonts
As I alluded to above, you or your brand may have chosen a swanky custom font to really show off your message - but as usual in email, your chosen font will not work in all email clients.
In fact, from the most popular email clients, Apple Mail and iOS Mail are the only ones to support linking to a custom font 😱 - check out the support table.
✅ Therefore, you will need some “Web-safe” fonts (fonts pre-installed on recipients’ devices) to pair nicely with your brand font, allowing you to tailor the opener's experience in every email client.
💡 You’ll want to choose a font in the same typeface, but you should also be checking the x-height and letter width to ensure you don’t get any layout shift or have to deal with orphans and widow words when your other fonts load.
🧰 I created a handy tool to pick and check how different fonts may work together - the Font Comparison Tool.
Making Sure Your Text Is Accessible
You’ve chosen your fonts; now you want to make sure the maximum number of recipients can read your email.
🚨 The biggest mistake I see is with colour contrast.
The Web Consortium Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG - I like to pronounce it WCAAAG!) state that to meet level AA accessibility, the text on top of the background colour should have a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1, and for the highest level, AAA, it should be 7:1.
🎨 You can check the contrast of your text using this colour contrast tool.
The second important part of making your text accessible is to think about the layout and hierarchy of your message.
Including sections, headings, and text that have the correct line-height and are broken up into paragraphs makes it easier to digest and read.
Then, your all-important calls to action should be well-defined and obvious when skimming through.
Code Your Typography To Work In Email
After all that work, you want to make sure those fonts are visible across email clients. With your custom or linked font, you will need to use one of three methods:
@import
<link>
@font-face (within the head of your email).
In most use cases, embedding the font in a style element in the head of your email will be the best option:
<style>
@font-face {
font-family: 'Custom font';
src: url('example.com/font-name.woff2') format('woff2');
font-weight:400;
}
</style>Once you have imported it, you can use it anywhere you would use CSS, by adding it to your font-family - this is where you will list all the fonts you would like used:
font-family: 'Custom font', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;The font-family above works by specifying the fonts in order you would like them to be used:
‘Custom font’ > Helvetica > Arial > sans-serif
There is a lot that goes into the typography within an email, and I’ve only scratched the surface with the tips above.
I have created the Ultimate Guide: Typography in Email, which delves deeper into every aspect and is continually evolving to add more tools and tips. I hope you find it useful. 🤓
My (Simon’s) Thoughts
I’ll keep it brief this week, and a huge thanks to Jay for guest authoring. This issue has been one of my favourites of the year! 🎉
I’ve been lucky enough to see the iterations of Jays: Ultimate Guide: Typography in Email, which goes much further than today’s email.
👀 If you’ve found Jay’s writing eye-opening (which I have), then, like me, you will find Jay’s “Ultimate Guide: Typography in Email” as your new source of truth and testing your typography.
All About Email - Playlist 🎧
I listen to lots of music, particularly when I’m writing newsletters.
Each week, when I hit the publish button, I’ll share the track I am currently listening to and create the most eclectic playlist you’ve probably ever heard.
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Sponsorship Opportunities
🚨 If you’re interested in sponsoring the “All About Email” newsletter, you can find all the details in this Google Doc.
That’s It For This Week 👋
Jay concludes our summer guest series. A huge thank you to my summer guest authors:
Creating Consistent Content - Vicky Smith
Your Treasure Map to the Inbox - Travis Hazlewood
I Like Big Buttons (and I Cannot Lie) - Emily Ryan
The Most Overlooked Inbox Barrier - Sarah Gallardo
Adding SMS to Mix? Read this first... - Elizabeth Jacobi
Next week, it’s back to me writing “all about email”. 😉
I have a couple of topics to discuss, but I’m not sure which one to tackle first: “link testing” or “segmentation and automation”. 🤔
See you next week!
Email Marketing News & Tips
This week's excellent and insightful email news & tips:
Marketing Buddy for Email - Email Design Studio, Email Campaign Builder, Predictive Analytics, Revenue Forecasting. (Beefree)
Email Peeps 69 - Travis Hazlewood. (Email Love)
Very Good Newsletters - Looking for inspiration? Check out how top creators are building bold, professional newsletters right now. (Beehiiv)
Win The Q4 Inbox - The insider’s guide to navigating peak-season email deliverability challenges with Travis Hazlewood and Israa Alrawi. (Ortto)
Running A Contest? - Keep these tips in mind. (Alison Gootee)
Dynamic & Data - Stop half-assing your onboarding emails. (Samar Owais)
International Inbox - Why Global Health Experts Rely on Geneva Health Files’ In-Depth Analysis. (Inbox Collective)
Nathan May - $1 Million With 1,000 Newsletter Subscribers. (Growth In Reverse)
No Savannah Bananas? - Mellow Yellow Collection (Really Good Emails)
Driving Sales - Boost Sales With These 10 Email Types! (Peyton Fox)
522 5.2.2 - Yahoo's mailboxes are full. (Word To The Wise)
Female Founders - Must-Read Newsletters by Female Founders Plus a beehiiv Launch Template. (Beehiiv)
Industry News - Weekly Email & Martech Wrap-Up. (Andrew Bonar)
🤯 1+ Million Views! - Half Yearly Review: 2025 (Email Love)
If you have a question about this email or email marketing, reply, and I will answer you as soon as possible.
I hope you have a great week! 👋
