Planning a HTML two-column email design
Before coding an HTML two-column email, you should plan its design and keep in mind that it is typically used to send email newsletters. The first step in planning a two-column HTML email design is to print out the jpg or to design it in Photoshop with a lot of white space around. Then you can use Photoshop to pick up the colors, to determine the width of all the elements and note all the details on the side of the Photoshop file.
When you plan this design, you have to keep in mind that there are different email software tools available for reading email, ranging from desktop software to web-based software services so you must ensure cross browser compatibility given that they all display emails in different ways. Therefore, you should use HTML tables to control the design layout and some presentation.
Yet if you use pure CSS layouts as it happens with your web pages, you won't be able to hold up with each email environment. Furthermore, you can use inline CSS to control other presentation elements within your email, for instance background colors or font. When it comes to a two-column HTML email design, you have many layout possibilities which can be created easily if you use HTML tables to split the space into rows and columns.