Style elements and guidelines
While sending an ezine means you have a captive audience, some considerations apply in the design of ezines to ensure that they are user friendly and have an appropriate and corporate look. The following criteria will help with the design of an ezine for your division, school, institute or administrative unit.
Mandatory elements
The following elements must be included in your ezine:
- UniSA logo
- Co-brand in the co-brand style (optional)
- Subject line - personalised (if relevant) or meaningful context
- ‘If you cannot view this email, please click here’ link - critical for accessibility reasons
- 'Unsubscribe' facility - must do one of two things:
- a link to an email address with a subject included, eg the code you
would use is
<a href="mailto:personsname@unisa.edu.au?subject=Unsubscribe%20from%20xxxxx%20ezine">
and look like this on the ezine personsname@unisa.edu.au
Note: the '%20' is in place of spaces in the unsubscribe text so it will work in full. - go to a webpage that has an unsubscribe facility for that particular ezine
- a link to an email address with a subject included, eg the code you
would use is
- ‘Privacy’ link - goes to
the privacy page
of the UniSA corporate website (http://www.unisa.edu.au/footer/privacy).
General style guidelines
- Ezine length
- An ezine is a teaser to get viewers to click on a link so make it brief - one page or less preferably
- Font
- Font type: Use either Arial or Helvetica for both body copy and headers
- Colour: Use black (Hex value #000000), or blue (Hex value #004C98) for body copy. Headers can be in a colour that is appropriate to the design
- Font size: Must be big enough to be legible
- Try to avoid using text in graphics (in case viewers have images turned off)
- Banner
- Thickness: For ezine format 2 and 3, you do not have to comply with a specified height as the design may not include a banner. However, if you are planning to include a banner, a 48 pixel height applies
- Colour: the banner needs to be in UniSA corporate blue
- Photoshop or other software is needed to manipulate banner size and image quality
- UniSA logo placement
For ezine formats 2 and 3, the logo must be featured in an acceptable manner in the top section of the ezine - Layout
- The width of the ezine should not exceed 550 pixels
- Text must be left justified
- For ezine formats 2 and 3, the general design of the ezine and images must be consistent with those used for the marketing campaign (if there is one)
- Headlines and header style
- Introduce your ezine with a punchy, interesting and attention-grabbing headline, preferably with an active verb in it, and in the first voice (eg 'Sick of trying to diet?')
- For the rest of the ezine, use headers to break up text for readability
- Header style: Bold Arial or Helvetica is recommended
- Tone and feel of content
- Keep the length short
- Write in an engaging and punchy manner
- Use subheadings
- Refer to the house style for guidelines
- Copy edit/proofread the final copy
- Image style
- Make sure images are good quality and appropriate
- Hyperlink style
- Underscore hyperlinks
- Make visited links a different colour
- Personalisation style
- Put a comma after the name:
- ‘Hi ….,’ or ‘Dear …,’
- Date style
- Use day, month, year