Empty Email Templates
Why Start with an Empty Email Template?
While pre-designed templates are incredibly helpful, there are moments when they don’t fit the vision. Certain brands have strict layout guidelines. Certain campaigns require a unique structure. Some teams simply prefer to have full control over every section, space and detail.
Starting with a blank template allows you to:
- define your own structure from top to bottom
- follow complex or refined brand guidelines precisely
- experiment with new storytelling formats
- create proprietary layouts for future reuse
- build multi-section frameworks that match your communication style
- design long-form or editorial-style messages without restrictions
An empty template doesn’t dictate your decision-making. It gives you the freedom to create something tailored, thoughtful and unique. It’s especially valuable for teams that communicate frequently or across multiple departments.
When you own the structure, you own the identity of your communication.
What You Can Create from Scratch
Blank templates open up creative bandwidth. With full control, you can design anything from minimal layouts to richly layered editorial formats. You’re not limited to common newsletter structures; instead, you can define your own.
Teams use empty templates to build:
- custom newsletter frameworks
- branded email layouts that match existing style guides
- high-end marketing or promotional emails
- multi-column email formats
- magazine-style content pieces
- event-specific or campaign-specific layouts
- internal communication templates designed for clarity
- modular systems that scale across teams
The beauty of a blank canvas is that it evolves with your goals. You can refine it over time, save sections as modules and develop a personalized system that becomes part of your organisation’s communication toolkit.
You aren’t restricted by what exists; you build what works.
Features That Make Publicate Ideal for Blank Templates
Even when starting from scratch, the tools you use make a significant difference. Publicate provides flexibility without making the process complicated. You control the layout, but you don’t have to fight the platform to achieve it.
- Drag-and-Drop Modules: Publicate includes structured modules like headers, images, galleries, announcements, footers and more. This means you can construct your layout piece by piece. You assemble the framework while letting the editor handle alignment and spacing. It keeps your design clean without limiting your creativity.
- Brand Kit for Accurate Styling: Brand Kit ensures your colours, fonts and logos apply instantly and consistently across your custom layout. Even when you’re designing something completely new, you don’t have to manually adjust styling or worry about alignment with brand standards. It brings accuracy without effort.
- Saved Modules for Custom Design Systems: Once you’ve created a section you love, like catchy headers, a feature card, a content block or a footer, you can save it as a module. That means your custom design becomes reusable across future emails or campaigns. You’re building not just a template, but a system.
- Dynamic Link Scraping: Empty doesn’t mean starting from zero content. When you paste a link into Publicate, it automatically generates a clean preview card with the title, description and image. It helps you populate your custom layout quickly while keeping everything visually balanced.
- Outlook & Gmail Integrations: Even the most customized layout should be easy to send. Publicate integrates seamlessly with Outlook and Gmail so you can build your design from scratch and still share it through your familiar email platforms. No exporting, no code, no frustration.
These features give you freedom without complexity; exactly what a blank canvas should feel like.
Best Practices for Designing from a Blank Canvas
Starting with an empty layout can feel liberating, but a bit of structure goes a long way. A blank canvas becomes powerful when paired with thoughtful design choices.
Here are a few guiding principles:
- Start by defining the top-level structure: header, sections, footer. Establishing this early keeps the layout organized.
- Use consistent spacing: Nice, clean spacing is what separates a professional layout from a chaotic one.
- Create a visual hierarchy: Headlines, subheadings and short paragraphs make the content easier to absorb.
- Choose visuals intentionally: Use images or icons to support your message, not to overwhelm it.
- Let your brand guide the design: The Brand Kit keeps colours and fonts consistent so you can focus on the layout itself.
- Save sections you'll want to reuse: This turns your custom design into a scalable format for future communication.
The goal is not complexity. It’s clarity, structure and thoughtful design. With a blank canvas, you get to define what that means for your team.
When Empty Templates Are the Best Choice
Empty templates shine in situations where predefined layouts don’t capture what you need. They are often chosen by teams that have clear creative direction or structured brand requirements.
They’re especially useful for:
- campaigns that require unique formatting
- teams with strict brand guidelines
- effective internal communication for creating proprietary layouts
- content-heavy emails that need custom organisation
- marketing teams experimenting with new designs
- agencies building templates for multiple clients
- product teams producing structured monthly digests
An empty template is the most flexible option in the entire template ecosystem. It adapts to both simple and complex needs, giving you freedom without sacrificing stability. When your communication requires a specific format, an empty template ensures you get exactly what you envision.
Get Started with an Empty Email Template
Your ideal layout might not exist yet, and that’s exactly why empty templates matter. With Publicate, you can open a blank canvas and shape your own identity, one module at a time. You decide the pacing, the tone, the visual structure and the hierarchy.
You can build a layout you’ll use once, or a framework you’ll return to for years. Either way, the tools make the experience smooth, intuitive and enjoyable.
An empty template is the beginning of possibility.
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