Project 2 min read
ActiveCampaign Management
Newsletter automation, HTML email systems, and list operations in ActiveCampaign.

Art Direction #
Sepia ink-wash woodblock, Tang Dynasty–inspired
Editorial, sharp corners, muted earthy palette
Textures (noise, paper grain, grid overlays) produced in Inkscape at low alpha values — tactile depth without compromising text legibility.
Dark Mode Strategy #
Standard techniques are inconsistently supported. Gmail auto-inverts colors based on its own luminance-detection algorithm. With ~90% of recipients on Gmail, the strategy was built around observed Gmail-specific inversion behavior.
With ~90% of ~11,000 recipients on Gmail, standard dark-mode email techniques fail unpredictably — beige backgrounds auto-force to brown and black text inverts to white based on Gmail’s own luminance algorithm.
Observed Inversion Behavior #
Rendered unchanged
Auto-forced to brown
Auto-inverted to white/light
Logic Judo — The Workaround #
Instead of fighting Gmail’s inversion engine, the system was designed to cooperate with it:
- Any section with a beige background was pre-set with brown text in light mode
- Gmail auto-inverts the beige background toward brown — the brown text either stays legible or swaps cleanly with the new inverted background
- Saturated brand colors (reds, deep inks) used deliberately in areas that needed to stay visually stable across both modes
Instead of fighting Gmail’s inversion engine, beige sections were pre-set with brown text in light mode — when Gmail inverts the background, legibility holds. Saturated brand reds and deep inks stay stable in both modes.
Build Architecture #
ActiveCampaign native blocks (sections, columns, spacing)
Hand-coded HTML/CSS for cards, modules, texture backgrounds
Inkscape → low-opacity PNG/SVG textures (~0.1 alpha)
2 recurring + 1 welcome/freebie template
Custom signup forms → segmentation + auto-tagging logic
Skills #
- HTML/CSS email development under cross-client constraints (Gmail-specific rendering)
- Reverse-engineering undocumented client behavior through manual testing
- Color system design for automatic dark mode inversion at scale (11k+ recipients)
- Custom HTML component design within marketing automation platform
- Applied graphic design (Inkscape) for texture/asset production tied to cultural art direction
- Form and automation logic: signup capture, segmentation, auto-tagging
- End-to-end ownership: visual identity → deployed, automated email system