Calumet Email Newsletter
The story of the newsletter started back when I was still a senior developer/designer on the web team. I’d periodically give the content team design advice — little things that could make layouts cleaner, create easy wins, and elevate the overall look. These small interventions built trust and opened the door to a closer collaboration with the head of content.
When I became Head of Art Direction, I felt a responsibility to keep pushing my design philosophy into every channel. The newsletter was one of the first areas I championed. I made a point of mentioning it regularly to stakeholders, showing small improvements whenever I could, and keeping the idea alive until the right moment to focus on it came.
That persistence paid off. Soon, I was sitting in on direct talks with the content lead and the developers at Emarsys, who were building the newsletter modules. With design, content, and development working in sync, we moved from ad hoc tweaks to building reusable modules that looked good, worked reliably, and represented the brand consistently.
The result was a newsletter system that felt cohesive and professional — less like a series of one-off sends, more like a branded experience. Production became smoother for the content team, developers had clearer design direction, and stakeholders saw a tangible step forward in how design could add value.
