Emparo needs a modular email system to replace its aging single column newsletter, one that lets the team assemble biweekly sends across four languages without starting from scratch each time. The brief is less about decoration and more about engineering: clean, reusable HTML blocks that hold up in Outlook, dark mode and a Klaviyo migration alike. This is a trustworthy Swiss retailer's operational backbone, not a campaign, so every block earns its place through reliability.
Overview & Goals
- Replace the manually built single column template with a modular block library the team can recombine for every edition
- Guarantee reliable rendering across Outlook on Windows and dark mode clients, not just modern webmail
- Design every block to absorb French text running thirty percent longer without breaking layout
- Cut assembly time per send to well under half a day
Budget & Timeline
The six weeks should open with an Outlook and dark mode rendering test on a rough block before any visual polish, since a third of the list reads there. From that foundation, the modular blocks get built and language-stress-tested together, with the documented snippet handover and first live send closing out the final week.
Target Audience
The audience is emparo's own newsletter list, a loyal, already-subscribed base of roughly forty thousand people across German, French, Italian and English speaking Switzerland, receiving a biweekly send they already expect and open.
Site & build
- Site type
- Landing page
- Features
- Multilingual, Newsletter signup
- Languages
- German, French, Italian and English. Every send goes out in all four, so the blocks have to tolerate text that is thirty percent longer in French.
- Key pages
- Header with logo and language switch, hero block, product row of two or three, editorial block with text and one image, single call to action, footer with unsubscribe and legal.
- Content
- Mixed
- Voice
- Trustworthy, Elegant
- Email platform
- Mailchimp today, but we are evaluating a move to Klaviyo. Build the blocks so the HTML can be lifted out, with no platform-specific tags baked into the layout.
Brand Story & Voice
Emparo sells across home, kitchen, tech, sport and garden, and its newsletter has to carry that range with a steady, credible hand. The voice should feel like a shop you already trust, not one selling to you for the first time.
Style
Colour
Measured on the material you sent
References & Moodboard
1 source captured. Click any of them to see it full size.
In the client's own words
Our newsletter goes out every two weeks to around 40,000 subscribers and it looks like it was built in 2016, because it was. It is a single-column table with product images pasted in by hand, it breaks in Outlook, and building one takes a colleague half a day. We need a modular template: a handful of blocks we can combine, in four languages, that survives Outlook and dark mode. The content changes every time, the structure should not.
Scope & Deliverables
- Documented HTML snippet library covering header with logo and language switch, hero, product row, editorial block, single CTA, and footer with unsubscribe and legal copy
- Four-language layout testing to confirm every block holds under longer French copy
- Outlook on Windows and dark mode rendering passes across the full block set
- Platform-neutral markup, verified clean for both Mailchimp today and a Klaviyo move later
- Handover as individual, labelled snippets for the team to assemble themselves, not a single finished email
Do's & Don'ts
Do
- Test in Outlook on Windows first, before any other client
- Make every block work cleanly at 320 pixels wide
- Design blocks to flex for French copy that runs thirty percent longer
- Keep markup platform-neutral so it lifts cleanly into Klaviyo later
Don't
- Do not rely on background images for layout or emphasis
- Do not use web fonts anywhere in the blocks
- Do not design a block that only works with a perfect product photo
- Do not bake Mailchimp-specific tags into the shared layout