Foredge Books · Email program proof

Four mailings from one system

Foredge Books is a fictional independent bookshop and small press, invented for this piece. Below are four of its marketing emails: a promotion, a welcome, a newsletter, and a seasonal campaign. Each one is a real responsive HTML file, rendered here live at desktop and mobile width. Open any of them and read the source.

01

The brief

Subject
A bookseller that publishes its own short list and mails the people who read it. The email program covers promotion, lifecycle, editorial, and seasonal work.
System
Editorial monochrome on warm paper. One warm near-black ink, one mid gray, a featherweight display serif, a tracked grotesque, pill controls. Hierarchy comes from scale and whitespace, never from color.
Constraint
Every email survives Outlook, reads at arm's length, and keeps every string as live text. Nothing on screen renders below 16 pixels, including the footer.

02

The system

Ink 1a1a17 text, plates, filled controls
Paper ffffff canvas and card surfaces
Ash 5f5f5d secondary text, hairlines
Frame f2f1ef outside the 600px sheet only
Display Old books,
in the best sense
Text Fraunces at weight 300 carries every headline. Inter carries everything operational, tracked at 0.03em. Body text is 18 pixels; the floor everywhere is 16.
Controls Browse the sale Read the full letter

03

The mailings

Mailing 01 · Promotion

The backlist sale

Conversion work: a four-title merchandise grid, one dominant call to action, and an end date stated plainly.

SubjectTwenty percent off the backlist, through Sunday
PreheaderThe books we keep reordering, minus a fifth of the price

Desktop · 600px

Mobile · 375px

The book covers in the grid are not images: each one is a typeset table cell, so titles and prices remain text and the email still reads with images off. The grid drops to a single column under 480 pixels.

Mailing 02 · Lifecycle

The welcome

Expectation setting for new subscribers: what the list is, what it is not, and a first-order code that does not expire.

SubjectYou are on the list
PreheaderOne letter a month, early sale access, and ten percent off your first order

Desktop · 600px

Mobile · 375px

The offer sits on the system's one dark surface, an ink plate with a paper pill, which makes it the highest-contrast block in the email.

Mailing 03 · Editorial

Shelf notes

The monthly letter: a masthead, a two-paragraph editor's note, and three staff picks, set at a comfortable reading measure.

SubjectShelf notes for September
PreheaderThree staff picks and a short defense of writing in your books

Desktop · 600px

Mobile · 375px

Long-form email typography at a comfortable measure, with the serif held to weight 300 throughout. The picks reuse the same typeset cover component as the sale grid.

Mailing 04 · Seasonal

The gift guide

Campaign work: picks organized by recipient, order-by dates up front, and free unbranded wrapping.

SubjectThe gift guide, and the dates that matter
PreheaderBooks by recipient, wrapped free, order by December 18

Desktop · 600px

Mobile · 375px

The one email that opens and closes on ink plates, bookending the paper sections. The dates module is a ruled box holding two order-by dates, with no countdown timer.

04

The engineering

Spec work by Ryan Allen | all demo concepts