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First, let me clear up one misimpression: trade magazines are still considered the "press"--so a notice which is intended to run in their industry news or editorial copy as contrasted to advertising would, in fact, constitute a press release. Of course, press releases are not normally HTML.
Personally, I'd want the two pieces to have a similar design theme to some extent. Let's suppose, for instance, that you put a vertical block on the left side with the title of your newsletter running vertically. I'd think a graphic using a reversed-out heavy font in a plan color background would be highly compressible and simple enough. At the top left, I'd work in your corporate logo. Then, for the press release, you might put a similar block with "press release" reversed out--even if it's another color entirely, the design theme would be clear.
One difference might be in the number of columns you use. Normally, a press release will have a minimum of formatting for the body of the release--making it easy to deal with for the editor. Thus, you'd normally want the press release to be a single column, ragged right.
By contrast, you might want to use a multi-column format for the newsletter. Often, you'd want areas in which you can place links to articles on other pages. Various kinds of headline notes also work much better in a multicolumn format.
Your branding people may have particular fonts and such already chosen--although if you as a tech writer are designing the templates, that doesn't sound likely. This sort of thing is something that should be done in quite a different manner than normal tech pubs. For example, if your company has templates or formats for fliers or information sheets, then IMHO these items should echo the look.
I don't believe you can go far wrong by rendering the materials you design that will be in the public eye to be strongly similar to other company publications. If the company doesn't *have* such a look to its other materials, then there is an opportunity to instill such a look that would generally be a very good idea.
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