More Design Tips

• • How “Category Creators” Inspire and Empower Customers
• • Draw People into Your Story with the Rule of Three
• • Three Steps to Great Design
• • Overcoming Obstacles in Design
• • Try Word Lists for Advertising “Gold”
• • Building the Perfect Letterhead
• • Attract Magazine Readers with Short-Form Columns
• • Essential Dos and Don’ts for Adding Beauty to Your Page
• • Grab Them Right Out of the Gate

Do-It-Yourself Letterhead

Letterhead is one of the key elements to your corporate identity. It is ground zero from a design standpoint. The layout, typestyles, and colors you establish here dictate the design of all the pieces that follow -- from your business cards and envelopes to your website brochure.

Why the letterhead? Because it is typically used to present the most important one-on-one personal communications -- introductions, proposals, requests, personal messages, and such -- the written greetings that require you to look your best.

Creating a striking design will create a favorable impression for your organization.

Here are a few helpful hints for designing a great letterhead:

1. Choose a smooth paper for your letterhead. It will print more evenly in your office's laser printers.
   
2. A strong logo, placed in a prominent position, creates a focal point for your letterhead.
   
3. Using a bleed in your letterhead design looks wonderful, but will add to the cost of the completed project, because it must be printed on oversize paper, and then trimmed to 8‑1/2 x 11.
   
4. When choosing a paper for your letterhead, it is often a good idea to check with us to see if matching envelopes are available. You might also want to check the folding characteristics of the paper, since most letterhead are folded and inserted into a #10 envelope.

Design it Yourself

by Chuck Green

This is not a design theory book -- it is a design instruction book. Artist and author Chuck Green steps you through the concept, layout, and production process of creating a marketing smart logo and incorporating it onto an eye-catching letterhead, business card, and envelope. From the initial research to checking the quality of the final, printed product, nothing is left to chance. Follow his lead, and the result of your efforts will be professional-quality materials at a design-it-yourself price.