Animated Email Signatures

Russell

Member
Hi All,

Client of mine has asked for an animated email signature, which clicks through to their site. Just wanted your thoughts as to:

A: Is this possible.
B: Is it a good idea or not (Cross Email Client compatibility issues, etc)
C: Finally, presuming it's a yes to the above, how you would go about setting this up? (I think they are using Outlook 2007 but need to confirm).

Thanks
 
Terrible idea, should not be done.

Do everything within your powers to prevent this from happening.
It will look unprofessional, will mean that every email will have a massively inflated size and will not be guaranteeable cross browser.
 
god no, picture sigs are bad enough.

Try and convince them a nice text one will be a better option :)
 
Reasons to use text:

+ Selectable contact information can be copied/pasted into contacts etc.
+ Lightweight.
+ Some clients won't display animated gifs.
+ Images often blocked by email clients (when the recipient has to click 'Allow images' after every email they're gonna be pissed off).

Reasons to use an animated image:
 
Thanks, I've advised against it but unfortunately they have had them done in the past for a previous event they were pushing so are quite adamant despite me pointing out all the mentioned pitfalls.

So if you had to, what would be the best and safest way round it, Animated gif?
 
I'd refuse on the grounds of them being an ignorant client, but then again I don't actually work freelance.

I'm afraid I can't (and wouldn't) offer up any solutions.
 
Hi Russell,

A: Techinically, yes.

B: Covered above, so aside from trying to educate the client...

C: An animated gif hosted on the clients site (same domain as their e-mail) then linked into their e-mail like a normal e-mail image is probably the easiest way of doing it. Make sure the gif is web optimized and try to keep to as fewer frames/colours as possible, to keep the file size for download as small as possible.

As for helping the client with their local e-mail software, this link may come in handy:
How to Add an Image to Your Windows Live Mail or Outlook Express Signature - About Email
 
Thanks guys, going to do it but make sure I ram home it's prob not the best idea. Client provides way to much work for me to be pissy about it, if they choose to ignore advice on it then at least I've done my job by pointing any potential issues out.

Cheers
 
Harry said:
Reasons to use text:

+ Selectable contact information can be copied/pasted into contacts etc.
+ Lightweight.
+ Some clients won't display animated gifs.
+ Images often blocked by email clients (when the recipient has to click 'Allow images' after every email they're gonna be pissed off).

Reasons to use an animated image:

100% agree...
 
I have just been sick a little, in my mouth! .... GL Russell, you done the best by them, but if they wont listen, not much you can do about it.
 
Electronic mail, commonly called email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages across the Internet or other computer networks. Originally, email was transmitted directly from one user to another computer. This required both computers to be online at the same time, a la instant messaging. Today's email systems are based on a store-and-forward model. Email servers accept, forward, deliver and store messages. Users no longer need be online simultaneously and need only connect briefly, typically to an email server, for as long as it takes to send or receive messages.email marketing solution as an effective tool to manage and market your business.
 
sonna said:
Electronic mail, commonly called email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages across the Internet or other computer networks. Originally, email was transmitted directly from one user to another computer. This required both computers to be online at the same time, a la instant messaging. Today's email systems are based on a store-and-forward model. Email servers accept, forward, deliver and store messages. Users no longer need be online simultaneously and need only connect briefly, typically to an email server, for as long as it takes to send or receive messages.email marketing solution as an effective tool to manage and market your business.


You sound like Levi!
Bless that copy. cut and paste. :up:

Now, were do babies come from....?
 
If we could like posts on here as you can on Facebook I'd be liking yours Typo... and probably Sonna's lets be honest!

I recieved an email the other day with a crap Christmas animated gif in the footer - turns out they have a different one for each day up until christmas! Looks horrid and I hate it!

Im open to the standard logo in a footer, recycling "green" icon... but not animated gifs...
 
Outlook 2007 will block animated GIFs - Microsoft, for once, have done something good in my opinion. Apparently, it can be a security risk, that's why MS decided to block them as of Outlook 2007 - and presumably in all new versions of Outlook from now.

If the client is happy to proceed, based on the knowledge that a good proportion of recipients either won't see their animation at all, or worse still all their emails go into the Spam folder, then go ahead - but I'd advise against it.

Just because something's worked in the past, doesn't mean it will work now - i.e in earlier versions of Outlook, you could do this, but if the recipients of the email are using Outlook 2007 then it will either not display (instead showing a box with a big red cross in it - very professional looking, eh!?) or it will go into the Junk folder. Either way, it reflects badly on the client - and as designer, you'll probably get the blame for people not receiving their emails. I'd politely turn the job down, once you've told the client the reason above.
 
Old post so it's done an dusted now, managed to talk them into just a static image in the signature in the end. But as I said at the end of the day you can only advise clients to make informed decisions, if they'd forced the issue I'd have done it as they put a hell of a lot of work my way.
 
I go through the same sort of thing all the time with clients not getting the difference between print and screen resolution. If they give me an image that isn't good enough quality for print I'll always point it out and try to give them alternates, but if they are adamant I'll use it. When they get the results back from the printers and see a horrendously pixelated image, next time they will listen to you.
 
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