Eight Layouts in Total, One for Every Taste
The last two layouts are live, which completes the set of eight in the signature builder.
Portrait Right
Text on the left, photograph on the right. It sounds like a trivial mirror of the usual arrangement and it is not, for one specific reason: most email clients show a preview snippet taken from the left of the message, and a signature with the photograph on the left can put an image where the reader expects text.
It also reads better with a tall headshot. Photographs on the left are usually cropped square to keep the block short. On the right, a portrait crop sits comfortably alongside four or five lines of text.
Monogram
No photograph. Your initials, set large, in your accent color, with name and details beside them.
This is the layout for people who genuinely do not want a headshot in their email, which is a larger group than the industry usually admits. It is also the only one that works well for actors who share an address with a company, and for anybody whose current headshot is out of date and who would rather show nothing than something wrong.
Picking one
- You email a lot of new contacts. Compact Stack or Portrait Right. The photograph is doing real work.
- You email the same twenty people. Single Line or Ruled Classic. They already know your face.
- You have four or more contact routes. Grid Cells.
- You want it to match your website. Accent Bar.
- You do not want a photograph at all. Monogram.
- You cannot decide. Ruled Contact, which is the safe general answer.
The thing that matters more than the layout
Whether the details in it are correct. A beautiful signature with a website address you no longer own, or an agent you left in 2024, is worse than plain text. Check yours whenever anything about your representation changes, which is what keeping your contact details in one place is designed to make automatic.
Related
The earlier layouts are covered in Ruled Contact and Ruled Classic and Grid Cells and Accent Bar. Photograph treatments are in circular photos and overlays and shapes. Installation is one click for Gmail.
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