You may have noticed significant updates on our website recently. Over the past few weeks, we’ve been making aesthetic improvements and redesigning various visual elements to enhance your experience. Initially, Crafting.email was a project with little focus on branding or long-term growth. We started with just a logo, and as we began to expand our presence on social media, we realized the lack of a cohesive brand identity was holding us back.
To address this, we’ve evolved the site’s visual language from a minimalist, simple design to a more robust, dark-mode-focused interface enriched with 3D elements.
Why the Switch to Dark Mode?
The decision to move to dark mode was carefully considered. The original color scheme, which relied heavily on bright blues and whites, often drew attention away from the actual content – the email templates we offer. On pages showcasing our templates, the bright background frequently overshadowed the designs, causing confusion among users, particularly when our templates featured white or light-colored backgrounds. Feedback from tools like Hotjar highlighted this issue, as we observed user interactions indicating some difficulty in distinguishing where templates ended and the background began.
We understand that dark mode is a subject of debate, with varying user preferences. To accommodate this, we opted for a unique approach that avoids the harsh contrast of “true black” and white. Instead, we’ve incorporated a palette of dark and light blues, along with greys, that complement our logo. We’ve prioritized readability and ensured that the site’s contrast aligns with WCAG AA standards, with a strong emphasis on accessibility.
Strategic Shift in Email Themes
Rest assured: our themes will remain free, and there will be no changes to our licensing. The focus of our strategy shift is primarily on the artistic development of the templates, where we will explore new design approaches. While all our templates are fully editable via the GrapeJS builder, we aim to make them more visually engaging by incorporating more personalized images. Given the availability of free design tools like Canva, many users are already adept at customizing images, such as adding their company logo. We will continue to prioritize editability in all our templates.
A Renewed Focus on Mautic
A large portion of our user base relies on Mautic. Although Crafting.email was originally created to serve the Mautic community with MJML email themes, we saw the opportunity to expand to other platforms and adjusted our website communication accordingly. However, traffic analysis shows that many users come to us directly from official Mautic pages, with fewer users arriving from other platforms. While we won’t disregard other platforms, Mautic will remain our primary focus for email themes, as it has been from the start. That said, our themes will still be versatile enough for use across various platforms.
Digital Communication: Social Media and Blog
If you haven’t already noticed, we’re now active on LinkedIn and Pinterest, and we’re planning to expand to Dribbble. Dribbble is a hub for creatives seeking inspiration, and we aim to inspire others in the development of their emails and related projects. If you think our themes are created without inspiration, think again – we’re avid users of these platforms too, and we are completely transparent about it.
Additionally, we’ll continue to expand the topics we cover on our blog, sharing insights and knowledge about the world of email marketing and digital marketing. It’s important to us that our blog content is genuine and rooted in our own experiences. We’re not trying to be email marketing “gurus” or to mislead our users—we respect our community too much for that. Our content is exclusively based on our experience in the field.
Expansion of Tools
Currently, we offer two free tools on our site: the MJML Validator and the MJML to HTML Converter. What started as a spontaneous idea has not only driven traffic but has also served a greater purpose: helping the community with their MJML-related tasks. With this in mind, we aim to continue exploring new ways to support and grow the community.
We Want to Hear From You
The foundation of any community lies in listening to its members, and that’s exactly what we want to do. We’re eager to hear your honest opinions and encourage you to share any suggestions you may have on any topic. We’ll be thrilled to hear from you. You can reach out to us via our contact page!
Thank you for helping us grow!
