Designing a unique email signature is a tough exercise of creativity within constraints, and still coming up with a cool idea that looks fantastic. Clients are often looking for an email signature design that helps them stand out among their competition so that their audience will see them as trend-setting, modern and approachable.
It's easy to search for design inspiration online and find unique ideas for email signatures that just won't work. Many template websites offer lots of unworkable (and often poorly coded) examples. Email signatures have frustrating limitations that mean you just can't do fun things like background images or overlapping artwork and text. We understand these limitations and have done our best to list some ideas and examples that can realistically be created! If you need to design your signature, we recommend our email signature generator which allows you to design email signatures that look great and work across all platforms. You can even start with one of our templates if you need an example.
Sometimes it can be hard to break out of the existing molds while still designing a workable signature. Here is some email signature inspiration and examples to help your next signature design stand out from the crowd and impress your clients.
24 Creative Email Signature Examples
Put the logo in a field of color
It is hard to communicate a brand when (almost) all you can do is upload a logo. So treat the logo as part of the design! Instead of just uploading it on white, consider what other colors the brand guidelines allow you to put the logo on top of. Try putting it into a shape like a square, rectangle or maybe even a circle. Give the logo plenty of room to breathe with ample spacing around it. This simple idea can take a boring design and make it look more professional and eye-catching. Additionally, this makes sure the logo is viewed exactly the way you want, protecting it from device specific configurations like dark mode that could change the logo's appearance.
Be creative with social media icons
Using social media icons as a design element is a fun way to add something visual to an email signature. If you have a paid plan with Signature.email, you can make them any color you want and choose from a bunch of different shapes! Try doing something different with them, like adding a column on the right or left and stacking them vertically there, or add a box at the bottom with a background color and put all the social icons inside. For a simple design make them light gray against the white background so they don't stick out too much.
Use design accents
Most people don't think about using design accents when they are designing an email signature! Not every image you upload has to be a logo. Think of things like chevron patterns, geometric shapes, ornamental flourishes, interesting accent lines, bold borders, or retro wavy lines. Consider adding accent images to create spacing, add color, break up information, and add visual appeal in the signature. If you have brand guidelines look through them and see what elements could be pulled into the signature, or just think about what kinds of elements would pair well with your signature. The only limits are your imagination.
Highlight their name
Arguably the most important piece of information in an email signature is probably the sender's name. So treat it special! At the very least it should be bolder or use another color that helps it stick out. You could also consider using wider letter spacing, larger font sizes, or even a different font entirely to help the sender's name be one of the first elements that an email reader would see when looking at the email signature.
Use colored accent lines to create space
Lines can create space even without filling in the middle. Use lines to your advantage. Don't be limited by 1px lines either, consider bold 15px lines or double lines. Try putting lines in interesting places to create space, like one big bold line at the top or on the left. Try encasing the email signature between two bold lines. Use color as your ally here, at times you can make a line bold and colorful, and other times lines can be light gray and be used to elegantly separate elements from each other.
Add a few icons
Adding icons helps the reader to be able to quickly scan the email signature and look for the information they want such as a phone number or website link. With signature.email we've included a whole library of icons for you to choose from, and you can customize their size and colors. But remember, icons are just images in an email signature, so you don't have to feel limited if you don't care for those exact icons. Look around for other icons online and use those instead. Typically, the smaller the better for these types of icons, so don't make them too big!
Bring out their brand and personality
Consider what little piece of information you could add to the signature to bring out your client's vibe and personality. If they are short, maybe add their values or mission statement at the bottom of the signature. Maybe they have a short quote or testimonial that could be used. Maybe it's just an image or banner that is unique to them. Whatever it is think about how you can creatively design it into the signature. It could be text, but it could also be an element you design in Photoshop or elsewhere and upload as an image.
Add a "Call to action" or banner
If your client is a salesperson, coach, realtor, or another role where they are looking for measurable results, then consider how you can creatively use a call to action button, or a banner, in your design. Signature.email gives you the ability to add actionable buttons into your design and custom color them, but again, you can also just upload an image that you design, there are no limits here.
We've given you a whole list of ideas in this article for ways to make your email signature designs more unique and captivating. That said, don't try to do all of them! Just pick one or two that could work for the design you are working on and do them well. Some signatures can get so filled up with information and cruft that they can be hard to look at. Keep your font sizes small, and remember that less is more in design. Keep the elements at a minimum and decide what is the most important.
Hopefully this list inspires you on your next design project, giving you some creative ideas on how to break out of the norm and make your email signature something more unique. We have some additional email signature examples here as well. Yes, there are annoying limitations on email signatures that can frustrate the heck out of designers everywhere, but that doesn't mean you should give up and just make a boring email signature. Try something new and your clients will be ecstatic about the results.
