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A reader asked me for newsletter design advice recently.
He was not the first person to ask — I’ve given versions of the notes I shared with him a few times before — so I collected my thoughts for you today.
— Francis Zierer, Lead Editor
P.S. Have a podcast, a newsletter, or both? Request a 15-minute session with the beehiiv team at Podcast Movement to strengthen your podcast and newsletter strategy, or learn more about hosting your podcast on beehiiv. Get your Podcast Movement ticket here.
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The skim test
Stop.
Before you read any further, I want you to scroll down to the bottom of this newsletter, and then back up, as disinterestedly as you can.
Welcome back.
The newsletter is a visual medium. All writing intended for individual reading is visual media! And all great newsletters acknowledge and leverage of this fact.
You can pour a lot of effort into newsletter design or a little; what matters is intent. What matters is going beyond just big beefy blocks of text. And not simply doing the opposite — only writing single-sentence paragraphs. This is a classic 2020s internet writing mistake: abusing single-sentence paragraphs produces as poor a reader experience as using only overlong paragraphs.
This is my first rule of newsletter design: every issue must pass the skim test.
Every Tuesday and Friday morning, as the last step before we send out Creator Spotlight, we send a test to our team and comb through it for errors. The first thing I do is open the email on my phone and scroll through — rapidly and disinterestedly. If nothing catches my eye, it’s not ready to send.
A newsletter is an email; emails live in the inbox; the inbox is a to-do list; a newsletter must arrive to that list as a completable task, or else lose access to the reader’s inbox.
One of my favorite writers, Patrick Radden Keefe, articulated this idea beautifully on an April episode of the How I Write podcast. He spoke about making sure his “reader brain” and “writer brain” are always in conversation:
“The example I always think of is someone will send me a pitch that they want to send to The New Yorker. Can I look at the pitch? And I’ll open the email, and it’s like 5,000 words.
[…] You’re pitching an editor who gets 100 emails a day with different ideas for things. You’ve got to do it in three tight paragraphs.”
He’s talking about a one-to-one email, but it’s the same for one-to-many newsletters. I promise you, nobody reads every word of your newsletter. I don’t even read every full issue of my personal favorite newsletters — but I do skim them.
There are quick changes we can make at the last minute to ultimately pass the skim test before sending — at the end of this issue, I’ll share what I did for this issue — but we’ve designed the newsletter so it’s close every time.
Overall layout and structure
Sections. Sections; sections!
I love the direct, candid, blog feeling of an unadorned newsletter. Black default font on a white background. No fluff.
Creator Spotlight is not that type of newsletter. There’s too much to communicate; we have to slice and portion it down some for our readers. This particular issue has three visually separated sections:
Introduction letter
Advertisement
Article
Could it be sectionless? Yes. But our Tuesday profile issues need sections, and the style carries over. The Tuesday issue typically has four sections, with the article being split into two: “In the Spotlight” and “Takeaways”. We previously had even more sections, and sometimes add more to any given issue.
The purpose of sections is to create rooms within the newsletter that the reader knows to expect and return to each time, which they can identify with a quick scroll.
We went with a paper-like beige color for our sections, with a tonal border, and lightly rounded corners.
We wanted a background color to create a surface within the inbox interface, but in a subtle, unobtrusive shade. And the rounded edges — most email clients use rounded edges in their interface. Sharp edges clash.
One more factor if you’re using sections is the space between sections. We do two full line breaks.
This is to create enough space between sections that it’s abundantly clear where they end and begin, especially during a rapid scroll. I actually started with three line breaks, which was a bit too much. Many sectioned newsletters just do one (see: Morning Brew), but I find the effect too cramped.
Three other newsletters with smart sectioning
Strategy Breakdowns by Tom Alder has a maximalist approach to newsletter design. Here’s a screenshot from one of his recent issues about the music streaming phenomenon — a great creator success story — of Lofi Girl:
What I like about this:
The Strategy Breakdowns design is extreme but well-executed. I find it enjoyable to move through. See the massive section break with the arrow above? It’s a GIF: the dot moves down the line from right to left, and the dotted line is in constant motion.
That particular issue has 9 separated sections. The effect — especially on a skim test — is to make the issue's nearly 1,600 words feel easy to digest. Instead of serving the reader a whole steak and giving them a steak knife, he’s hospitably pre-sliced it.
This is design as an assertive form of hospitality. It’s like taking a guided tour on a fixed track instead of exploring an area for yourself.
Big Desk Energy by beehiiv CEO Tyler Denk (Creator Spotlight is owned by beehiiv) is, like Strategy Breakdowns, highly stylized. Here’s an example from a recent issue:
What I like about this:
Opinionated style. It’s a 90s-style computer interface. The name of the newsletter is BDE. Tyler always takes a stance in his writing. All of these factors — there’s not much middle ground. You’ll enjoy it or disagree with it.
Maximalist, but not overwrought where it matters. A typical Big Desk Energy issue has seven sections. But the actual article is always one section, not broken down. It’s easy to just focus on the writing and ignore the rest.
Consistently well-executed variable sections. Besides the article section, BDE’s sections include: an advertisement, a links roundup, a user-generated content slot, a music section, referrals, and feedback. These are low-effort sections readers will either skip or build a consistent habit with.
Finally, for an example from a media company (as opposed to the independent creators above), Semafor. Their “Flagship” newsletter is my personal gold standard for newsletter design. Here’s the intro and first section of a recent issue:
What I like about this:
Feels lightweight but info-rich. The dotted-line borders, an almost legal-pad yellow (not precious), the unique globe graphic adding context to the list of stories.
Like Strategy Breakdowns, there’s an arrow between each section, pulling the reader down the page. But in this case, it’s just a small, still image.
In other words, it’s efficient, clear, skimmable, and respectful of the reader.
Images and embeds
Images and embedded social media posts are essential texture in any newsletter issue. I’m stating the obvious here; the challenge is in finding a way to produce original graphics beyond just using screenshots (guilty) and sharing social media posts relevant to the issue (guilty). That’s fine; it’s just the bare minimum.
For every issue, we work with our designer, Laura, on an original cover image (like the one at the top of this article). Whenever possible, we also work with her on original charts relevant to the issue:
Something we do to make even screenshots look a little more bedded into our world is add that red-orange rounded-corner border to every image (see above).
You don’t need to be good at design tools to make nice visuals for your newsletter.
One of my favorite visual bits of the last year is (former Spotlight guest) Rachel Karten’s napkin drawings. Custom graphics also do well repurposed on social — I swiped this one from a LinkedIn post of Rachel’s with 281 likes:
(You’ll note I tried my hand at this near the top of this issue)
Scroll Rachel’s newsletter or LinkedIn, and you’ll see all kinds of clever but ultimately simple graphics. I’ve recently seen her hand-writing interview pull quotes. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s intentionally railing against simple AI-generated graphics. It’s smart!
I would not recommend using one-shotted gen-AI graphics in your newsletter. However, I’ve seen people use generative AI as part of their graphic design process to pleasing effect. Such as former Spotlight guest Liz Kelly Nelson in a recent issue of her newsletter:
One more example is recent Spotlight guest Kyle Poyar, who told me he makes all his (popular, effective) graphics in Google Slides. Google Slides! I cannot stand using Google Slides; it’s so clunky. But his graphics work, like this one from an older issue celebrating 50,000 subscribers:
The point is — try a little. Maybe you have a designer, maybe you are one. Maybe you don’t, and you aren’t. But you can doodle. You can collage elements of gen-AI images. You can make a slide. Do what you can; your readers will appreciate the effort.
Text and formatting
Again: writing is a visual medium. We’ve chosen specific fonts and colors — orange-red headings, as above — to enhance the reader experience. The function is to add texture but retain readability.
Use section headers.
Use bullets! Often, when Natalia and I are editing each other’s work for this newsletter, we’ll identify a paragraph or two that can be easily reformatted as a bulleted list. It helps the reader digest, breaking up the paragraphs. These two bullets were a paragraph in my first draft.
My favorite newsletter bulleting use case is in Tangle, which is, by their description, “a non-partisan politics newsletter that gives you a 360-degree view on the news. No spin. No clickbait. Opinions from the left, right, and center so you can decide.”
Tangle sends daily issues, typically covering one hot topic of the day. They’ll aggregate what “the left” says, what “the right” says, and one of their editor’s takes. I open most issues, but I’ll be honest, I rarely read much of it. I do skim for the bullets summing up each of the three perspectives. And it’s an easy skim — the bullets pop out in the midst of longer paragraphs. Here’s an example from a recent issue about data centers:
Their newsletter has more design flourishes than it used to; the color background and box didn’t used to be there, and the bulleting was still effective.
Finally, use bolding and italics. But don’t overdo it. One of the last things I do to an issue of Creator Spotlight before sending is scroll through and bold sentences or parts of sentences every couple of paragraphs.
Think about a rock wall. I am not a rock climber, but I’ve been to a climbing gym a couple of times, and I’ve watched plenty videos of people like Alex Honnold climbing seemingly flat, vertical rock walls.
Most readers are not like Honnold, able to climb towering surfaces without so much as a rope for safety. You need to give them holds. Images, bulleting, bolding, variety in paragraph length — these are holds a newsletterist provides their readers. Places to grip, places to rest. Visual texture keeps a reader engaged.
Here is exactly what I changed in this issue during my pre-send skim test:
Shortened the intro text. The original intro text consisted of two longer paragraphs, with an even longer paragraph in the “P.S.” section. I halved the length and varied the paragraph lengths.
Added rounded corners and color borders on two images. I’d missed a couple during drafting.
Added bolding here and there throughout the issue.
Turned three paragraphs into bulleted lists.
Shortened and deleted multiple paragraphs.
