Episode 59: Signatures and Circles

Michael remembers when clients wanted to see how their logo looked on their letterhead and business cards.

“I still will show a letterhead, but I can tell that a lot of the people in the room don’t intend to ever send anyone letters,” he says. “Instead they send emails.“

So now he designs email signatures, and his approach is minimal. But since the days of ASCII signature blocks on Usenet, email signatures have been a contentious topic.

Here is some contradictory advice from the past decade:

• Scott Hanselman, Email Signature Etiquette — Too Much Flair? (2007)
• Kat Neville, Smashing, The Art And Science Of The Email Signature (2010)
• The Economist, Spare us the e-mail yada-yada (2011)
• Drew Magary, Deadspin, How to Not Piss Off the World With Your Email Signature (2012)
• Stephanie Vozza, Fast Company, 5 Common Mistakes You=E2=80=99re Making With Your Email Signature (2014)
• Devan Ciccarelli, Sumo, 7 Click-worthy Email Signature Examples (& How to Make Them Work for You) (2017)

Also mentioned this week:

• The McQuary Limit
• Rob Walker, Fortune, How Logos Became the Most Important Quarter-Inch in Business
• Molly McHugh, The Ringer, Circle Gets the Square
• Garbage fire and swastika in Twitter clrcle
• Wonder Woman reviews by A.O. Scott and Steve Rose
• Demetri Martin, Dean

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