The Secret to Powerful Email Signatures

Recently, we introduced Hey CreativeMornings!, our experiment for swapping recommendations and know-how with you, our people. Every other week, we’ll continue to pose a question in our Weekly Highlights newsletter and here on the CreativeMornings blog, and we’ll invite you to email us with your answer.

After we called on you to answer the second question in the series — What do you include in your email signature? And why? — you pulled through with all sorts of stories, tips, insights, and ideas that you’re considering to make your email signature special and helpful. (If you didn’t get a chance to email us with your email signature strategy, it’s not too late! Share your answer in the comments section below.)

After reading each one of your messages, we saw that your signatures range from utmost simplicity to complicated designs, sprinkled with telling details, both joyful and informative. Your signatures offered a glimpse into your universe, reflecting who you are, what you do, and what you believe in. We noticed some distinct patterns and popular elements, as well as moving personal stories behind your email signatures. We’ve compiled our findings here. You might just find new inspiration for how you conclude your emails.

Contact details

It probably comes as no surprise that nearly everyone who responded included contact details in their email signatures. This commonly included name, website, and social media links. For work emails, most people added their job title and other details pertinent to their job or business. Many also included their phone number and email address. “It sounds redundant to have your email address in your email signature,” wrote Marinda V., but indicated that it can be helpful to include nonetheless for those who only scanned your email.

Visuals

Some of your email signatures were simply text. Others embraced graphic design, photography, and emojis to show who they are and what they do. For authors, like Allen K., including a photo is a chance to highlight the covers of their published books.

For business owners, the email signature was a branding opportunity and a place to include a logo. Take Paula S., for example. She has 8 different email addresses to organize the different work she does as a vocalist, performer, songwriter, speaker, and the officer of a public speaking club, and she has 8 different email signatures to match. “My picture is in most of them,” she writes. “As a performer, it helps keep my identity up front.”

Emojis are another way you all added a pop of color and fun. For Reyhaneh H., they help to mark time: “I put an icon based on the season we are in: For Spring, a bud. 🌱 For Summer, wheat. 🌾 For Autumn, a yellow leaf. 🍁 For Winter, snow. ❄”

Here it is in practice:

Pronouns

Including your preferred pronouns is another popular element of your email signatures. “[Sharing] your pronouns shows that you are open to others sharing theirs as well,” wrote Julia T. For Imelda M., the decision to share her pronouns came from a desire “to help create a safe space around gender identity.” Similarly, Karen D. hopes to help with the “normalization of specifying pronouns.”

Land acknowledgement

Some respondents use their email signatures as a way to honor indigenous communities. “I acknowledge the Turrbal and Jagera Peoples whose land I work on. I pay my respects to their culture and their elders past, present and future,” wrote D.

Personal turning points

Some folks used their email signatures to commemorate pivotal experiences. This is true for Pauline B., who had been working an unfulfilling job for a big corporation. When she took a leap, changing jobs and moving her family to a new country, she added this to her signature: Don’t be afraid to start all over again. This time, you are not starting from scratch, you are starting from experience. Following another personal turning point, she added this: A Cook is someone who follows a recipe, a Chef is someone who reinvents cooking. This line is important to Pauline because, as she wrote, “I discovered I have creativity, although I thought I didn’t. I wrote it to never forget it.”

Here’s Pauline’s email signature in action:

For Aimee D., reading The Cheese Monkeys, a novel by Chip Kidd, changed everything. She randomly found it at a book sale while in high school more than 20 years ago, a serendipitous discovery. “It inspired me to become a graphic designer, and the quote below speaks volumes to me as a designer. I never change my signature.”

Here’s the quote from The Cheese Monkeys that Aimee includes in her never-changing email signature: “Kiddies, Graphic Design, if you wield it effectively, is Power. Power to transmit ideas that change everything. Power that can destroy an entire race or save a nation from despair.”

Here’s Aimee’s email signature in use:

Quotes and sayings

Your email signatures sparkle with words of wisdom. Here are a few real-life examples:

“The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.” — William James (from Tami B.’s signature)

“On the starting line, we’re all cowards, but the secret to getting ahead is getting started.” — Leticia Cline (from Kimberly M.’s signature)

Marcia M. ends her emails with “Kindness is contagious!” because, as she wrote, “I want everyone to be reminded that one little kindness can go a long way.”

Setting clear boundaries

For some, an email signature is an opportunity to communicate clear, kind, and humane boundaries in a world where the lines between work and home, on and off are increasingly blurry and time away from screens can feel scarce and precious.

Mo uses a Chrome extension that automatically appends his emails with this note: I’m using Inbox When Ready to protect my focus. “I like it because it sends a message to folks that I’m not available all the time via email. I think it also encourages others to explore setting boundaries with their electronic comms,” Mo explained.

In Jess K.’s email signature, she includes this call for protecting your time: “Please know that I honor and respect boundaries around personal time, well-being, caretaking, and rest. Should you receive correspondence from me during a time that you’re engaging in any of the above, please protect your time and wait to respond until you’re next working. Prioritize joy, not email, when and where you can.”

You can see Jess’ message in italics here:

Bringing it all together

An email signature is an underused tool — but it doesn’t have to be. A key to a joyful and meaningful life is human connection. And one way to build connection is to create entry points that spark interest and conversation. An email signature has this power. It can encourage people to connect with you on a personal level: not just how to email or call you, but how to better understand who you are, what you believe in, and where you channel your energy.

Did you write a blog post or give a talk that you’d love more folks to see? Link to it, like CreativeMornings founder Tina Roth Eisenberg does in her email signature:

Have a favorite GIF? Include it. Write a newsletter? Point people to the sign-up page, like facilitator, author, and CreativeMornings speaker Priya Parker does:

Host a podcast? Produce a show? Have a Patreon? Or, do you want to spread the word about any number of other pursuits? Follow the lead of Baratunde Thurston, host, producer, author, and CreativeMornings speaker, and highlight it:

An email signature is an easy way to showcase what you stand for, what you’re interested in, and spotlight your side hustles and passion projects. Your email signature may be short, but it doesn’t have to be boring. It can be a delightful invitation into your world, as bright and pulsing with life as you are.

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We’ll be back next week with a brand new question, so be sure to subscribe to our Weekly Highlights newsletter to receive it and future questions straight into your inbox.

In the meantime, let’s keep the email signature conversation going in the comments section below. What’s your approach to email signatures? What new ideas do you want to try?

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