I'm a graphic designer and my skills are mostly design for print, with some basic html. i've been asked by a prospective client if i can put together an HTML email based on their corporate guidelines for an invitation to a client event.

what's the best way for me to do this? any good instructional videos/tutorials online?

currently using indesign cs3 and photoshop cs3. would i need an html editor? – suggestions?

thanks.

It's tricky, because the HTML handling on email clients is slightly different to web browsers.

I write the HTML emails for our company, and just write the code as most of the HTML email senders/systems won't cope with more than completely basic code (HTML 4.0, nothing more fancy than that), can't use background images, and some of them have a habit of 're-intepreting' your code…

You could use something like Dreamweaver or FrontPage, but frankly that would be OTT. Be as basic as you like with code, the easiest way to get a decent layout is to build it as a table, use a banner image in the top cell to set the max width (I tend to stick to a 650px width, to keep it scroll-free on things like Outlook) and just configure your layout from there. You'll know a shedload more about the design side than I do, so I'll stop there!!

Drop me an email if you want a couple of examples – in profile. Cheers!
Pyro

Less is more on this one usually.

An oxymoron?

Use a 3rd party tool such as Emma or mailchimp. This will cost a little bit of money (like 1 cent per recipient) but makes development and testing tonnes easier (and gives vastly improved tracking etc).

Once you have created the email have considered how it is to be broadcast, how clean the send list is and how it will be tracked? And there are regs about who you 'should' send to and how they can unsubscribe etc. I would steer clear if you can't give qualified advice IMO.