Designing

6 top tips for designing a professional letterhead

It’s a good idea to design an eye-catching letterhead that sells your company and represents its value accurately. Check out the 6 best design tips you can use to design a professional company letterhead starting today.

4 min read March 26, 2021

The letterhead on your company’s stationery is more than just a title or contact information; it’s the first impression a potential customer or client might get about your brand. Therefore, it’s a good idea to design a professional letterhead that sells your company and represents its value accurately.

Let’s break down some of the tips you can use starting today to make a great business letterhead for your brand’s stationery and other official documents. 

Remember: Simple is stylish

In terms of overall design, remember this important fact: simpler is almost always better. Don’t go for a convoluted or complex design that overwhelms any neat logos or fonts you might have chosen. Simpler aesthetics or designs that get your message and brand across are always more effective.

Opt for a professional letterhead design that is straightforward and to the point, even if it also includes some stylized elements or a special font to make your brand stand out from your competitors.

Choose the right fonts

Speaking of fonts, you’ll also want to take plenty of time to choose the perfect lettering style for your brand. There are multiple aspects to this, including the actual font aesthetic, the font size, and more.

  • Choose between serif and sans serif fonts. Serif fonts are often considered to be more traditional and “elegant”, whereas sans serif fonts are more modern and may be easier for your clients to read if your letterhead is a little smaller than average
  • Consider the font family as well. Many fonts are provided in “families” since they share a visual resemblance to one another. For example, Verdana and Arial fonts are both quite similar and can be used throughout your official business documents. Keep font families in mind when deciding on the overall look and feel of your brand
  • Font size matters quite a lot, especially since any given font can look significantly different based on its size. We’d recommend that the font not overwhelm the actual text of your documents, so avoid making it too large

All in all, don’t hesitate to try out multiple different fonts before settling on one perfect for your brand’s letterhead. 

Come up with a great layout

The layout of your letterhead will affect how people read a paper’s information and take in its aesthetics. For example:

  • You could go with a full border design, featuring color and stylized elements all around the outside of the paper
  • Or you could go with a graphic border, using shape and color around the edge of the body text
  • Maybe you want to be more minimalist and restrained. In that case, keep your letterhead design restricted to the header and footer of the page

Pick the right paper

Naturally, you’ll need to consider what paper your business letters and documents will be printed on. Heavier paper is usually more professional and premium, but it can also affect the look of a letterhead more than you might think.

Excellent letterhead paper examples include:

  • Cream wave paper, which is incredibly common and made from recycled paper: a key point if your brand is environmentally friendly
  • Alabaster paper, a good choice if you need to print your papers using a laser printer
  • Texture paper if you want to include a tactile element in your brand’s presentation to your clients

Consider the rest of the stationery

You may not want to design just a letterhead for your business. To really sell professionalism and your brand’s seriousness, you might consider investing in other bespoke stationery, including note cards and envelopes.

Of course, should you decide to go this route, make sure that the other stationery also matches your letterhead’s aesthetic and general graphic design.

Use software to generate ideas and mockups

Lastly, you’ll also want to use a graphic design software to help put letterhead ideas together and test them on the screen before spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on the final design.

For instance, PosterMyWall allows you to create company header templates, try full letterhead designs, compare different font ideas, and more. All in all, this user-friendly design platform can help bring your letterhead vision to life, even if you don’t have a lot of graphic design experience.

Designing a professional letterhead for your business can be a great way to make your company stand out from the competition and elevate your reputation. Follow these tips and you’ll be well on your way to creating a perfect letterhead in no time. Learn more designing tips through these blog posts.

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