Leopard and mail stationery... so close

One of the features in Leopard that was most touted was the ability to us html based "stationery" to send cool emails embedded with logos, photos or whatever you want. As a photographer, I imagined all the possibilities to be able to send cool stylish emails with my logo or photos or whatever... but something that would give me the opportunity so send something other than the black text on white screen email.

It exists... it is a part of Mail 3, but the choices that are built in are not all that attractive (unless you want to look like a spin-off from a iPhoto advertisement or you are fond of really obnoxious backgrounds (like little flags.)

While the argument could be made that there are some cute ones, and there are, they are all aimed at the "cute" market... and some fall farther from the mark than others. What makes the whole thing not-very-Apple-like is the difficulty of trying to make any changes to the stationery templates or personalize them.

Here is a ten step tutorial on the Creative Guy blog showing you how to modify stationery (very cool for him to break it down and post it.) It is not impossible but it isn't simple either.

The other option is to shell out $30 and buy a bunch of other stationery templates that to me are all a bit over the top, too just like Apple's.

Neither solution exactly work for me.

What is odd is that there is no functionality built into iWeb to create stationery templates... it seems like it would be such a perfect fit and really boost the value of the whole thing to be able to make your own. The stationery is html based as is iWeb... why are they not playing nicely together?

The same thing that Apple has done with music (GarageBand), photography (iPhoto and Aperture) and video (iMovie and iDVD) which is to give the end user the ability to be creative in a simple and powerful interface has been lost with Mail and stationery.

Hopefully in the future (or maybe with the next Leopard update) this will become a reality so that email can become an art form on its own.

The other thing that needs to be mentioned is that html based email is the bane of Blackberry and most email enabled phone users everywhere. It shows up as a bunch of html coding and is nearly impossible to decode. So if you decide to dig into the stationery and start using it for your email, just don't send it to my Blackberry.