Okay, so white space, what I mean by white space isn’t necessarily white space, but the spacing in-between the elements in your email. So, I mean, just looking at this Airbnb example here, you’ve got really spacious, lots of space around the logo and around the text here. Now you could sort of say that’s a complete waste of email real estate, but actually I would argue that it’s the opposite. It actually draws the eye to those elements. The more space you can surround it with, the more that stands out in its own right. So, if you bunched that up against that and then this up against that, yes, ok. You are crowding the real estate up a little bit. You could say making more use of the space that you’ve got, but I would say less content in your email, but space that content out.
So using the white space effectively. So, in my view and I’ve got a very, you know, Apple-centric view of graphic design. I would say, looking at this email, this works. You know, ‘Take it outside’ the font size is huge. The logo is very simple. There is nothing else going on to draw your eye. You are drawn right to the ‘Take it outside’ message, and I think that really works. So, the space around it is really important. Going down, you’ve kind of got some even space between the image and the text and the text and the next section, and even padding and spacing either side of the text as well. So, it’s all just about consistency and having the right space and the same space in between the different elements and just letting the copy speak for itself and the imagery speak for itself.
It doesn’t have to be overcrowded, you know, this is a really simple one-column email. And it’s really kind of just drawing the eye down. There’s not too much copy going on, like two lines of copy. There’s not much here crowding up the email. You’ve got nice icons here, which is very similar and it’s very on brand, similar to their logo, you know, the imagery and the calls to action are simple. ‘Explore’ who doesn’t want to explore. Explore and discover are great words to use in your calls to action, but again, you know, spacing around everything. This really works. So, here’s another one here.
Otter.ai, lots of spacing around the heading. Lots of spacing in the header, I would probably get rid of this bit here ‘Get Otter Pro’ seeing as well, the whole message of the email is Otter Pro. I would just have the logo right there in the middle, a bit like this. And I would just, I mean, I think, you know, this works really well. ‘Leave every meeting with clear notes and actionable next steps’. You know, the spacing around it. Less is more, you know, don’t have like lots of copy here, lots of words, lots of filler words, you know, less is more bring the font size up a little bit. Just try and get the message across in less words and less stuff. But, you know, look at the size of this text, look at the size of that call to action. I mean, that’s kind of what you’d see in a mobile email.
So, you can argue that that’s too big, but hey, you notice it is there. You know, in terms of white space, there’s a lot of white space in between the elements. I mean, this looks like the mobile version of the website, even though it says desktop. But yeah, a lot of white space going on. And again, Apple, you know, as I said, you know, I favour Apple in terms of graphic design, but they, a bit like Google, a bit like Airbnb, they’re kind of masters of white space, clear messaging, attractive messaging, appealing to the emotions, appealing to your sense of, kind of, wanting to belong and be unique. You know, Apple’s famous TV advert, you know here’s to the people who make a difference and are unique and different in the world, they kind of fought for the underdog, even though they’re the most successful company in the world or used to be. It’s quite strange. But, yeah, I mean they still have that kind of message, you know, very clear, very simple.
A lot of space around stuff, you know, they don’t crowd everything in. Very clear. And here’s the last one. I mean, okay, now here’s probably an example of too much white space, you know, literally, right? Okay, so talking about above the fold line, this would probably be what the email looks like in your inbox. <laugh>, there’s just nothing going on apart from this. I mean, that is probably an email designed in Photoshop and not really thought about how it’s going to look in the inbox. So, you’ve kind of, you know, they’ve kind of got this little bit of space up here. You could say they’ve kind of wasted that. They could probably do away with that and just go there and just bring this up. I mean, do you need that much space? So, there’s such a thing as too much white space as you can see here. I mean, great, nice imagery here. So nice product shots.
I mean, is there any call to action to actually buy that? If I want that, where do I go? Is this a link? Yeah, so I’d say this isn’t a well-designed email. I mean, it looks okay, but in terms of it being an effective email, I’d probably say it kind of loses the message. There’s a lack of calls to action, too much space going on. Yeah, I wouldn’t say this is great. So, of all these examples, I would say this is probably a good example of a good use of white space. Nice spacing around all the elements. So just something to consider when you’re putting your next email together. Don’t crowd everything in, just give the assets, the imagery, the text, the buttons all that, just give them room to breathe and have some white space around it because that effectively draws the eye in.
