Sur La Table Email Design Evolution

Role

Visual Design, Art Direction, Dev

Platforms

Photoshop
Dreamweaver

Deliverables

Design template
Coded template

Overview

On the Table is a series of emails sent once a week by Sur La Table. The goals of this campaign are to engage the customer with a recipe they can try at home, and encourage them to buy the tools referenced in the email. We wanted to test if a newer, shorter layout with a more simplistic design and paired down copy would increase click-through rates to the website and increase sales of highlighted products.

I took lead on designing a new layout, art directing the photography, partnering with our copywriter to edit down content, and translating the final designs into HTML/CSS code so we could send the campaign to our customer’s inboxes.

Design Evolution

In 2014 the email was extremely lengthy, with an abundance of copy and sub modules. I slowly started to pull out content so that the email became more focused- as shown in version 2. The process of removing content continued into version 3, where the focus was tightened even more and the design streamlined. By version 3, we noticed that click-through rates had increased by 10%.

New Design

Today’s version of On the Table is the sleekest version yet, and also the most pleasing on the eye. Improved click-through rates continued to climb with an overall 15% increase, and revenue from the highlighted products increased by 10%. Introducing subtle gif animation increased customer interaction and clicks.