KLM: Live countdown timer in an animated e-mail (view.klm-mail.com)
over 7 years ago from Darko Krstevski, Senior Graphic Designer, International Baccalaureate
over 7 years ago from Darko Krstevski, Senior Graphic Designer, International Baccalaureate
This is clever:
The hour glass is a GIF; no problem there.
The timer is presented as a image to the email which is actually a php page.
Something like this? http://seanja.com/secret/countdown/
Yes I think so :)
Nice trick! thanks for clarifying
JCrew did this in July, definitely caught my attention. Very effective..
Can anyone comment on the compatibility of this tactic? This really is pretty cool... I wonder what other things you could dynamically include?
If I'm honest HTML email coding is the worst. Everything is really dated and most things you'd expect to be supported are not & the differences between email clients can be substantial. It's its own form of coding art and you can perfect the dark magic if you do them enough. I've done quite a few in my time and basically you code it and if it works on your targeted platforms then you ship it. Hence this crazy hack by KLM; I imagine it works pretty well else they wouldn't have shipped it.
Because HTML email is so restricted it actually forces you to innovate in crazy ways like emulating a dynamic image using php. Sky's the limit; you've just got to matchup the creativity and the technical know how.
At Zalando we also send out these kind of mailings but we hack it nu using onze image patch but changing the image itself. But I totally agree in coding for e-mails!
Then again, you've got some really strict guidelines and tons of articles about what you can and can't do, and most of it ages quite well because nothing* has changed in x years.
does it work in outlook? :D
EDIT: tried it with putsmail help. it looks good but of course its not animated.
That is a haaaaaack
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