Animated imagery is one of the top email design trends for 2019 . Email marketers all over the world are looking to add movement to their campaigns, and the most popular way to do this is to use the power of animated GIFs. But animated GIFs aren't the only file type that lets you add motion to images. Animated Portable Network Graphics, or APNG, is also an option you might want to explore. Reasons to use APNGs in emails An animated PNG is exactly what its name suggests: a collection of PNGs that are combined to introduce motion. So, to understand what makes an APNG special, it is essential to understand the characteristics of a simple PNG. There are two types of PNG formats: PNG-8 and PNG-24. PNG-8 is similar to GIFs in that they are saved with up to 256 colors.
The PNG-24 format is capable of displaying millions of colors. So, compared to the limited colors of a GIF that often make animations look shoddy, APNGs allow you to use the full range of color depths . This makes your images look sharper, especially when using photography with a wide color gamut, but higher quality always comes at a cost. If you don't Image Masking Service watch your file sizes carefully, PNG files can get quite large. If you use more than one to create an APNG, large files can negatively impact your email load times. Also, unlike GIFs, APNGs allow you to work with transparency . GIFs mishandle transparently, applying a rough white edge around elements when set to a transparent background: Why would you want to use animation on a transparent background, you ask?
Transparency and animations in emails: APNGs in Litmus's October newsletter For our Halloween-themed October newsletter this year, we wanted to give our readers the option to "turn off the lights", changing the email from a bright design to a dark and spooky one. Also, for even more creepiness, we decided to include an animation to make creepy eyes blink in the dark, ghosts hover and ooze, but only when the lights are off. See the full newsletter in action here. To hide the animations in the light version of the email, we made them the same color as the background they were placed on in the light version. When a subscriber "turned off the lights", these background colors changed and, surprise, made our spooky animations visible!