Crate & Barrel is an international destination for contemporary and modern furniture, housewares, and decor that help people Welcome Life In.
Create engaging promotional emails that drive awareness and sales, build functional transactional emails, and effectively target with triggered emails.
Lead Designer: Sara Utz
Brand Manager: Suhani Amin
Project Manager/Copywriter: Chris Walbert
Agency: Drexler & Phenomenon
For 8 years, I was the design lead for Crate and Barrel’s email marketing. I established visual guidelines that complimented and evolved with the brand’s identity. These guidelines created cohesiveness among the thousands of emails sent and provided a seamless transition from physical catalog to inbox to site.
As I built Crate's email marketing, I continually pushed email's best practices. This included mobile-responsive and mobile-first layouts.
In the beginning, the emails pulled strong inspiration from Crate's catalog—using only photos from the catalog. I began to pull away and think about email as its own medium, which drastically improved layout and functionality. This also helped push for digital-first photoshoots (ie, Memorial Day and Black Friday), prioritizing email and eCommerce over print.
Over the eight years I led design, these emails consistently drove engagement and sales for Crate & Barrel.
I believe the key to this success came from effective composition paired with storytelling. We stayed true to the iconic brand with strong messaging and visuals. Our emails served as sources of inspiration, not just sale reminders. This led my designs continually being featured by Really Good Emails, Iterable, Litmus, Shopify, and more.
