Jason Rodriguez | Mostly writer, sometimes designer.

This is an important post from Mike Davidson, one that’s been taken the wrong way on other sites (like HN, which isn’t surprising). I totally agree with Mike that what Superhuman is doing is unethical and worrying. But it’s terribly annoying when commenters conflate what Superhuman is doing with what ESPs do with email marketing to track opens. Calls to disable all images in email because of tracking like Superhuman’s seems… unnecessary.

One of those times I wish more people understood the underlying mechanics of email and the web. I guess that means there’s more education and work to do on my end, huh?

Over the last decade, I’ve heard a lot of definitions for email design, all of them hit on different aspects of the email designer’s role. However, I’ve found most of those definitions shallow and limiting. In the latest episode of the #DeliveringPodcast, I dig into what I think email design really is.

This is absolutely fascinating. Alessandro Cortini of Nine Inch Nails uses a Tascam Portastudio, which is an old 4-track cassette recorder, as an instrument. I have one of these sitting on my desk and desperately want those tapes he has. I love the idea of taking a tool and pushing it beyond its intended purpose.

In today’s episode of Delivering, I take a look at the humble—but powerful—background image. It’s a companion piece to the recently updated Ultimate Guide to Background Images in Email over on the Litmus Blog.

Oh, and I published a roundup of three trends we’ve loved at Litmus Live and how those trends are impacting this year’s agenda. Check it out and see some cool sessions from last year.

Wow, I didn’t realize that Jeffrey Zeldman started working for Automattic this year. That seems like a big (and interesting) move, excited to see what he does there. The first output I’ve seen is this great post about not being so hard on yourself if you’re an old-timer learning new skills in tech.

In today’s episode, I’m chatting with Chad S. White, Head of Research at Oracle Marketing Cloud Consulting and the Email Experience Council’s 2018 Email Marketer Thought Leader of the Year, about email analytics, the metrics that matter, and the biggest challenges and opportunities for email marketers today.

In this episode of Delivering, I dig into the history of the email marketing industry and the technology that powers it before making a few predictions about what’s to come for email marketers.

I wrote up some tips for submitting better proposals to events for CSS-Tricks. As a conference organizer, I’ve seen a lot of proposals, likely over a thousand at this point, and think I have a good eye for picking out the better ones. Hopefully this article will help if you’re looking to speak at an upcoming conference.

The new podcast from Litmus, Delivering, has officially launched. In the first episode, I talk about what’s changed from the last podcast and what we have in store. This should be fun…