Apr
03
When it comes to designing your letterhead and envelope its a good idea to design your business card at the same time. This will enable you to create consistent branding for your company and ensure that your business card, letterhead & envelope will all look like they belong together; If you give someone a business card and later send a letter, you want those pieces to reinforce each other.
Envelope size
The standard business envelope is 9 x 4 Inches. It’s called a #10 envelope. The European size is 110mm x 220mm, and it’s called a C4 envelope. Whilst, however these are the standard sizes, nothing is stopping you from using a different size envelope which more suits the type of mail your company often needs to send. As long as your envelopes are designed with the same brand as the rest of your stationary, size doesnt really make any difference.
Create a focal point
One element should be dominant, and it should be dominant in the same way on both the letterhead and the envelope (and the business card). On most corporate identity materials, the logo if often the focal point, but if you have any other brand related element which suits more as a focal point, be sure to use that.
Just as an example, take a look at the stationary for one of my businesses, DigitalTRAX. Whilst the logo is one of the main elements on all stationary, you will notice that the real focal point is the blue tint, and is consistent across all of the business branding materials, including adverts, stationary, cars, and even clothing.
Alignment
Choose one alignment for your stationery! Don’t center something across the top and then put the rest of the text flush left. Be brave-try flush right down the side with lots of line spacing. Try setting your company name in huge letters across the top. Try placing your logo (or a piece of it) huge and light, maybe as a shadow beneath the area where you will type (as Ive done with my stationary for DigitalTrax above). On the letterhead, make sure to arrange the elements so when you type the actual letter, the text fits neatly into the design of the stationery.
Second page
If you can afford to make a second page to your stationary, take a small element that appears on your first page and use it all by itself on a second page. If you are planning to print, let’s say, 1,000 letterheads, you can usually ask the printer to print something like 800 of the first page and 200 of the second page. Even if you don’t plan to print a second page, ask the printer for several hundred blank sheets of the same paper so you have something to write longer letters on.
Faxing and copying
If you ever plan to send your letterhead through fax or copy machines, don’t choose a dark paper or one that has lots of speckles in it. Also avoid large areas of dark ink, reverse type, or tiny type that will get lost in the process. If you do a lot of faxing, you might want to create two versions of your letterhead-one for print and one for fax.
So as you can see, with a little thought and careful consideration in planning, creating corporate identity you can be proud of isnt that difficult. For more information on designing with your companies brand in mind checkout Tips For Effective Business Card Design, and Create Consistent Branding.
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Brilliant - I was looking for tips on how to design a new letterhead.This post is really professional and appreciated - thanks for putting this information on your blog.Cheers for now,JohnI’ll be back