I have a confession to make: I stole the design for my email signature.
Maybe I can make it right by offering my design to you.
You’ve probably guessed that “stealing” the design of a professional email signature isn’t a big deal. Besides, what I actually did was modify an email signature I liked to create my own.
You can do the same thing. Just copy a signature you like from somebody’s email and change things like:
- contact information (obviously)
- font type
- font size
- font colour
- sections included (e.g. add a Twitter handle, remove the fax number)
That’s all there is to it. And if you think this is stealing or in any way unethical, talk to a few artists you know about this idea. Don’t be surprised to hear them say they do this type of thing all the time.
Quick note: some people put graphics in their email signatures. Some people even make their signatures into embedded graphics. What such people fail to remember is that graphics in an email, even today, don’t always appear correctly.
If you put all your contact information in a graphic, you’ll earn the dislike of Mac users (like me) who like to use data detectors to quickly turn text-based email signatures into Address Book entries. Put your info in a graphic and we spoiled Mac users need to actually TYPE your information if we want it in our address books.