More Design Tips

• • Get That 3D Look Without Breaking Your Budget
• • Boost Your Marketing Prowess with Perfect Postcard Design
• • 5 Ideas to Spark Those Creative Juices
• • 5 Ways to Toot Your Own Horn
• • A Metaphorical Idea
• • 5 Must-Haves in Every Layout
• • Trim the Fat: What Your Logo Doesn't Need
• • Timeboxing: An Outline for More Efficient Design
• • Paragraph Indicators - Make A Dent in Your Universe
• • Designing for Color-Blind Viewers
• • Add Sparkle With the Symbolism Tool
• • Grab Them Right Out of the Gate
• • Depicting Time and Motion with Design
• • When Color Matters
• • Design That's Easy as A-B-C
• • Eye-Teasing Design
• • Variation on a Theme
• • Room to Breathe
• • Low-Cost Clip Art and Images
• • Typographical Terms
• • Breakthrough Brochures
• • The Risk of Over Designing
• • Successful Newsletters How-To
• • Do-It-Yourself Letterhead
• • Creative in Black and White
• • Poster Design Tips

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.