How to make a simple email signature online in under 5 minutes

What is a simple email signature?

A simple email signature should be limited to your essential information and a couple of features that complement that information. This means you should only add the info people need to know who you are, what you offer, and how to reach you. 

A simple email signature should include only these 4 basic components:

1. Full name (no nickname)
2. Job title and place of work
3. Your image or your company logo
4. Contact information (not including your email address)

Simple email signature generator

The fastest and easiest way for you to get your simple email signature is by using a signature generator. 

If you’re looking to DO rather than UNDERSTAND there is no need to spend your time reading this informational article. You’ll make the best use of your time diving right in and creating your signature. If you DO want to learn the basic principles of making an email signature skip the generator section.

The wisestamp signature generator is free and simple to use. It’s only gonna take you about 2-5 minutes to make a basic professional looking signature and be done with it.

What is a simple email signature design?

Simple designs use a few colors and a lot of white space. It uses the least amount of space for what has to be presented and excludes any non-essential elements.

To design a basic email signature do the following:

1. Use big lettering for what important and small for what is not
2. Use rounded corners to soften your design
3. Use no more than 2 colors (and avoid strong vivid colors)
4. Use icons where they can replace text
5. Segment your signature into groups of related information (professional info, contact info, social media, Call-to-Action, etc.)

To learn more about how to make simple designs take a look at our email signatures examples or browse our templates in the sections below.

When it comes to your email signature, less is often more. And while there seems like no end to the number of fancy features and design options available to you when designing your email signature, maintaining your focus on clean and clear design can give you the best results.

I mean, take your social links for example. Do you want to offer your social media in all your work emails?

Sharing personal social accounts has its benefits for some people but may not be appropriate to include in all your business emails.

Keeping the signature design simple helps to show your readers that you’ve carefully selected the information you include. This can add an emphasis to the importance of the features you decide to keep.

Achieving simplicity

If you want to, you can go crazy with the wealth of features you can add to your email signature with WiseStamp. But if simplicity is your cup of tea, you can use these advanced features to make a simple email signature – the smart way. 

Below are just a few of the things that you can do with Wisestamp’s signature make to clean up your signature:

1. Add icons instead of labels for your phone number, address, website, etc. This saves you space and allows for a more compact and minimalist signature.
2. Add social media icons – this is a great way for professionals that use their social media as a central marketing tool, such as designers, musicians, and photographers. It allows you to pack a rich offering to encourage your readers to further engage with you on your other channels.
3. You can choose to give your image rounded corners in our editor, and this will give your signature a cleaner, smoother look, with extra white space. The neat design will be associated with you, and that’s a big plus.

Learn from simple email signature examples 

In this signature, Irine has included only her phone number, email address, and college website. There are no icons or labels as a minimal and simple design helps make the contact details self-explanatory and very clear to read.

Content is separated with slim orange lines, and the quote at the bottom works very well to add some of her personality without muddying the signature’s simple design.

Kenneth has included four separate contact details which he has chosen to label with full-text descriptions.

I think the horizontal line in the middle of the signature works very well to separate his contact details from his name and role.

By including the environmental responsibility footer in a simple design like this, you can really emphasize how important the environment is to you. Your readers are far more likely to act on your message if it isn’t crowded out in a busy signature.

I really like Kenneth’s signature design because the absence of color and the use of bold text makes it very clear where to look for her contact information.

The size of the text in relation to her profile picture strikes a perfect balance to make words the focus of this signature. The slim black lines nicely structure her contact details to the right of her profile picture, and the light grey works well with the bold black labels.

I think Alan’s simple signature works great because all the details, including his profile picture, are stacked in one clean column under a styled signoff.

In the example above, the lack of color and separators blends basic signature features readers are used to with the advanced, professional touches of a profile picture and styled signoff.

You can use this simple signature as inspiration to create a professional email signature of your own with a personal touch that’s not going over the top.

Alan also gave his signature a little personal touch by adding a best regard email sign-off. In order to add it in elegant cursive handwriting Alan used our sign-off app that’s included in the WiseStamp free email signature generator (you can try it out here). 

How to make a simple HTML email signature without a generator

Making a simple HTML email signature is not so simple. At least not if you want it to look really professional. The truth is, that to work with HTML you need to know HTML, and the easiest way for you to get a professionally coded signature is by using a signature generator like WiseStamp. 

If you like, you can use WiseStamp to build your signature then export the HTML snippet and imbed it in your email platform settings (though there is no need since the generator installs your signature for you)

Not convinced? You can use this snippet I build for you in simple HTML. All you need to do is copy and paste it into the right panel of this HTML editor, then edit the signature in the left panel to change it to your details. After that, you can copy and paste your new signature in your email signature settings.

Dr. Charles Xavier  Head Geneticist at Muir Island research lab 1-800-800-800 |  www.wisestamp.com  Muir Island, Moira Rd. 2, Scotland

Conclusion

The best simple email signatures are those that do more with less. Consider what you need your signature to do then try to make it achieve it with the least amount of space without making it lose clarity. 

So make your signature compact but don’t make it too small so it’s hard to read. Make your signature stand out with color but don’t make it colourful. Add the information that people will want to know but leave out anything that only YOU want them to know.