Email Signatures: Best Practices


The Office of Marketing and Communications makes the following recommendations for best practices in incorporating a signature in your email communications.

Email signatures are an extension of College stationery. These best practices will help ensure that your carthage.edu email meets professional standards, represents the quality of your work and the College’s business, provides relevant information to support your business process, and presents a consistent, cohesive look to those we communicate with via email.

Fonts

  • Keep it simple: Helvetica, Verdana or Calibri are good choices. Not all computers can read all fonts. We recommend you use a very legible and commonly recognized font.
  • Black type is most legible. We recommend you use only black or gray text for your signature.

Images, Graphics, GIFs, etc.

  • Images, graphics, and GIFs are NOT recommended. Different email clients process images in different ways. Therefore, including an image — of your signature, icons to social media, and yes, even the Carthage logo — is NOT a best practice or recommended. An image in your signature means you run the risk that a recipient will receive the image as an attachment, will be prompted to manually load images, or will see your images as nothing more than a box with a red “X” in it.
  • Background images or borders in your email should not be used. It can distract from the content of your email, make your email illegible, or even prevent your email from being opened or delivered.
  • Still want to use a Carthage logo? While we recommend against the use of images in email signatures, we understand that many employees like to show their Carthage pride in this way. Please be certain that you are using a correct Carthage logo. Administrators, academic leaders, and employees who regularly communicate with the public should use the main Carthage College logo, unless they work within Athletics. Images are available below.

Quotes

  • Do not use quotes. Keep your email professional. A common mistake is to add a favorite quote for the last line. While this is perfectly acceptable for your personal email account, quotations should not be used in your Carthage email signatures.

Template

A suggested template for creating your Carthage email signature follows. Depending on your role at the College, not all fields may be applicable. Use pipes (|) to separate items you would like to put on the same line:
262-551-0000 (office) | 262-551-0001 (fax)

Name
College position title
Office or Department (if it’s not obvious from your title)
Carthage College
2001 Alford Park Drive, Kenosha, WI 53140

Phone number (fax or cell number optional)
Email and Web address
Pronouns:

Links to the College’s social media

EXAMPLE

Elizabeth Young
Associate Vice President for Marketing and Communications
Carthage College
2001 Alford Park Drive, Kenosha, WI 53140

262-551-6145
eyoung@carthage.edu | www.carthage.edu
Pronouns: She/Her/Hers

Follow us: www.carthage.edu/connect
Take a virtual tour: www.carthage.edu/tour


Images

Carthage College Email Signature Images (right click to download)
The main Carthage College logo is preferred for all College administrators, leadership, and all non-Athletics offices and employees who communicate with parents and/or the public. We love the Firebirds logo, too! But we want to be sure we’re known as Carthage College first, and this is our primary brand. Thank you for your cooperation!

Carthage College Email Signature Vertical

Carthage College Logo Email Signature

 

 

Carthage Athletics Email Signature Images (right click to download)

Carthage Athletics Email Signature
Carthage Firebirds Email Signature

Carthage Firebirds Email Signature Horizontal