If I was to sit back and simply watch the advancements in the realm of digital design and coding, I would have to go back and study after 12 months. That is how quickly the digital landscape is changing! Over 11 years ago I took the leap into graphic design while still attending school. I was trained as a traditional print designer in the realm of promotional marketing under the professional guidance of some of the greatest creative directors I have had the privilege of working with. I worked as a graphic designer for over 5 years, but for some reason I felt that there was something more I could be doing in terms of my career – digital design.
I have always had a fascination with technology ever since my grandfather got the internet connected to his house way back in 1995. After waiting for what seemed an eternity for the modem to connect to the phone line and the World Wide Web, you could use Netscape to visit any website you could think of. What was it that made all these interactive elements work and appear? If I simply hovered my mouse over a button it would change colour. Why? Actually… how?
Fast forward 20 years and I started my first full-time role as a digital designer here at DesignStreet. The internet was in a state of chaos with the recent introduction of HTML5 and there was no order set as yet. The literal language of the internet had changed. Some websites worked very well, while others wouldn’t work without an Adobe Flash or Microsoft Silverlight plugin. Videos could now be embedded without the need for external plugins and websites could be scaled properly for the many smartphones that now accessed them. Everything was going well in terms of websites but there was still one massive problem. Emails.
Coding a visually pleasing HTML email (or eDM) that appears properly for all recipients on all devices is still impossible in this day and age. Let me explain…
There are 4 different desktop email clients, 2 different tablet/mobile clients and 13 different web-based clients across 3 different major browsers. That gives us 45 different email clients. Not too hard yet. Now, times that by the amount of devices that have been released over the past 6 years. Now, times that by the amount of software updates that have been released and the amount of email client updates that have occurred. We are now well into the 10,000’s, but all of these variables need to be taken into account. An email that appears perfectly on my 2017 Macbook Pro could look very different to what the client can see on their corporate Microsoft desktop.
On top of all of this, we haven’t even gone into the actual code behind what makes a
well-designed eDM. On average, there are over 1200 separate lines of code with over 65,500 characters of HTML used to create a single marketing email. An average marketing campaign consists of anywhere between 3 to 10 eDMs, sometimes way more depending on the variables of the recipient.
This all sounds super complicated but this is my job. I enjoy doing this and I love a challenge. The role of digital designer can be summed up with one my favourite quotes:
“A developer’s job is 10% writing code and 90% understanding why it’s not working.”
For now I’ve got it all under control. I just hope the next software update or smartphone release isn’t around the corner…
Sources: Litmus State of Email 2019
