Afterpay sits at the centre of a huge retail network, spanning everything from beauty and homewares to travel and dining. Its emails do two jobs at once: carry Afterpay’s bold, playful brand and help shoppers discover the retailers and products they can buy with it.
I worked with the team on Afterpay’s email program, designing campaign creative alongside a library of reusable modules and responsive templates the wider team could build from.
The brief: a flexible email system that could carry seasonal campaigns, shopping events, gifting, retailer features and everyday product messages, while always feeling unmistakably Afterpay.
My approach: I worked on two levels. On the surface, expressive type, confident colour and lifestyle photography gave each campaign its own personality. Underneath, a set of modules set the rules: how a hero introduces a message, how shoppers scan a grid of retailers, how product cards relate and where calls to action sit. Spacing, hierarchy and navigation stayed fixed, while imagery, artwork and composition were free to change.
The result: a connected family of desktop and mobile templates, from image-led heroes and retailer grids to app messages and QR-led content, ready to become anything from a Christmas gift guide to a simple account update.
3.4M
Australians using Afterpay
24M+
Active customers worldwide
348K+
Merchants worldwide
01 CampaignsBold, expressive and unmistakably Afterpay.
Seasonal and event emails led by expressive type, confident colour and lifestyle photography, with room for each campaign to find its own personality.
02 The systemEvery email built from the same set of parts.
Heroes, banners, retailer grids, product cards, app messages and QR modules, each designed for desktop and mobile. Every module was checked against four people: the shopper, the retailer, the brand and the team building the emails.
03 In marketHoliday campaigns, assembled from the system.
Gift guides, app tips and dining offers. Each one is a different message, built from the same foundations.
Looking backDistinctive creative, backed by a system that scales.
The impact: These templates were built for a customer base of around 3.4 million Australians, part of an Afterpay network of more than 24 million active customers worldwide. Every module had to hold up across retailers, campaigns and screen sizes without being redesigned each time.
What I took from it: Consumer retail work needs two kinds of judgement at once. The creative has to feel desirable, and the structure has to be disciplined enough that a busy team can put together a new email quickly. Deciding what stays fixed and what gets to change is the part of the job I enjoy most.