I am new at hotmail, too. Last night I sent two msgs and got failure notices that no msg was selected even though the email said it was " a real Windows software site and to me.
However creating a pretty email is easy including a choice of fonts or one handwriting font in a choice of color and a second choice of I recomment a lighter background color to highlight your signature.
SO HERE'S HOW YOU DO IT. Instead of COMPOSE as on Yahoo, you click "NEW" and your typing space appears. Now I may not be perfect in memory but I moved from your question to look at my hotmail page before coming back to answer, so it will be close. I am going beyond just color.
ALL ACROSS THE TOP OF THE TYPING SPACE ARE SYMBOLS.
First is a check mark with ABC in it, that is just your spelling checker. Next is two "Fs" together and moving your cursor close yields a flag reading FONT and actually clicking the "Fs" yields a drop down with short phrase examples of your font choices. You just click on the font example you choose. Next is a box with a down arrow tip maybe reading font size or you have to bring the cursor close again. Click on it and a scroll off bigger and bigger numbers also getting bigger in size will come down. You click the size you want. Then there are a few vertical and horizontal line symbols. The cursor will tell what they are. One is INDENTand I think the others DECREASE INDENT, RIGHT JUSTIFY, LEFT JUSTIFY and CENTER. THE LAST SYMBOL IS A YELLOW SMILEY FACE WHICH I HAVEN'T TESTED BUT IT MUST BE LIKE YAHOO BUT I DON'T KNOW HOW MANY FACIAL EXPRESSIONS YOU GET TO CHOOSE FROM.
NOW TO THE QUESTION I'VE GOT YOU
SWEATING FOR ME TO ANSWER : COLOR !
ALONG WITH ALL THE SYMBOLS ACROSS THE TYPING SPACE I MENTIONED IS A FAIRLY LARGE LIGHT BLUE BOLD "A" WITH A VERY THICK / BOLD BRIGHT RED LINE UNDER IT. CLICK THE BLUE "A" AND DOWN POPS A TABLE OF LITTLE MULTICOLORED SQUARES. JUST CLICK THE COLORED SQUARE YOU WANT AND YOUR TEXT WILL BE IN THAT COLOR. IF YOU REMEMBER WHICH SQUARE YOU CLICKED YOU CAN EVEN STOP TYPING, CLICK THE "A" AGAIN TO MAKE A FEW WORDS STAND OUT IN DIFFERENT COLOR AND CLICK "A" AND THE REMEMBERED COLOR TO RETURN TO TYPING IN THE COLOR YOU FIRST CHOSE OR LIKE ME YOU CAN USE COLOR CHANGING AS SORT OF MARKING CHANGE OF THOUGHT OR A PARAGRAPH.
To end, don't forget that the B for bold, the slanted I for Italics and the underscore U are up at the top of the typing space, too
PS I don't think hotmail has the number of color choices that Yahoo has except in designing your signature. Yahoo has I think first a bigger initial array of colors bold and subtle PLUS something to click for MORE CHOICES, PLUS something to click for CUSTOM COLORS. HOWEVER, YOU SAID YOU WANT RED AND THAT HAPPENS TO BE THE COLOR THAT STANDS OUT CLEAREST ON HOTMAIL.