Derek Gulbranson
Case Study

Email Signature Tool

2003 - 2006

Company & Brand Mission

Corporate email signatures. Centrally deployed and managed email signature templates that provided end users with the flexibility they need while providing brand managers with control over the visual representation of their brand.

My Role

It was my one-man show so I did everything, starting with an idea and turning it into a profitable business.

The Story

While consulting for several large, global law firms in San Francisco I repeatedly had clients ask me for a solution to the problem of providing a company-wide, branded and standardized email signature.

At the time, we were all weary of self-created magenta signatures in Comic Sans. The brand managers I worked with knew these email signatures were a missed opportunity to convey the brand, but there were really no good technology solutions available.

I would end up building one-off solutions that would fill the client’s immediate need. As my solution grew more robust and full-featured, I eventually turned it into a product that I could market and sell on its own.

Email Signature Tool

I designed a Windows (WinForm) application that installed the company’s branded email signature and contracted with an amazing Windows developer that helped me build it. I also designed and built the marketing site and administration interface using Ruby on Rails (v1.0). The templates were XSL that could be updated via a web-based administration panel. Company office locations were also centrally managed. Users could see their signature as they typed and choose among several configurable design options. The XSL templates provided and incredible amount of power and flexibility to customize signatures for specific locations or working groups.
The landing page on the public web site.
Landing Page
The per-user pricing was somewhat complicated. I developed this interface to help users find a cost and support balance that worked for them.
Price Calculation
The administration interface for marketing and IT administration. Allowed the centralization of office locations, update of XSLT templates, admin user management.
Client Admin Panel
This is the windows application interface that users were presented with to create their email signature. Flexible interface and tempting system allowed for sophisticated control of presentation while providing users with a lot of flexibility in a simple interface.
Windows Application Interface