Email Templates and Signatures
As a general rule, email templates and signatures should be free of imagery. Regular use of images in email presents the following problems for recipients:
- Images are often blocked by many email services, and are thus unreadable.
- Images in emails are often assumed by email providers to be containing recipient-tracking information (possibly increasing the likelihood of getting picked up by spam filters).
- Images in signatures can drastically increase use of email server space and can delay delivery.
- Images show up in many email clients as message attachments, making functional work more challenging and less productive (e.g., making a search for a given attachment more time-consuming).
Exceptions to this rule include messages sent to email lists by the Office of the President and other senior leadership offices. These messages, due to their rarity, importance, and need for formality, may contain branded header imagery or unique templates created by the Office of Marketing and Communications. Any other unit at Northeastern that wishes to send messages to university email lists must get the prior approval of the appropriate senior vice president. Please contact Courtney Oliver in the Office of Marketing and Communications for more information.
Body text should not be contained within an image whenever possible, for the sake of readability. Basic HTML formatting may be employed to craft a unique look for invitations and other formal messages, though even this type of formatting may not translate to all email clients and devices.