If you’re like most professionals, you rely on letters to communicate with clients, customers, and other business contacts. A well-designed letterhead template can help to enhance your professional image and make a positive impression on the people you contact. Here are 10 things to consider when making a professional letterhead template.
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#1 – Font Choice Is Important For A Good Letterhead Design
In general, you want to use a simple sans serif font when designing your letterhead. This is the type of aesthetic that most business customers respond best to. You don’t have to use a boring or bland font in order for it to be professional, but many people associate them with success and trustworthiness. Commonly used fonts include Helvetica, Arial, and Calibri.
#2 – Margins And Spacing Make Your Letter Head Neat
Margins are the blank space found around the edges of your template. There are several guidelines for margin sizing, including
• Inches – 1/2 inch on all four sides
• Centimeters – 2 cm on all four sides
When deciding between inches and centimeter measurements, consider what your audience is most comfortable with.
• Spacing refers to the distance between letters, words, and lines in your design. Your margins determine some of this spacing, but you also need to take into account font size. This is what determines how close or far apart individual letters are from one another. Fonts that are more condensed leave less room for spacing, while fonts that are more spread out require more spacing. You can adjust these measurements by changing the font size or tracking (the term used for extra spacing).
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#3 – Logo Placement
Your letterhead needs a logo of some kind-even if it’s just your initials. The top center of the page is often an ideal place for a logo because it’s not too cluttered and it’s easily visible. However, some fonts work better when set to the left or right of your name instead.
#4 – Color Scheme
You don’t have to use any colors at all on a professional letterhead template, but if you do decide to use color make sure that it reinforces your business image. In general, cool colors like blue tend to be more professional, while warm colors like red can seem more personal or casual. You can also choose a mix of different hues for a unique design that stands out from the crowd.
Be aware of how printing works-some web browsers can’t print tinted backgrounds correctly, which results in a white background showing through behind black text even though it doesn’t look like that on your screen.
#5 – The Three Line Rule
The three-line rule refers to the space above, below, and between paragraphs of a letter. Each paragraph begins on a new line, and there’s always one blank line separating different sections of text from each other. This is an easy way to make letters look more professional without going too overboard with formal design elements.
In general, try to keep the number of lines used in your letterhead as low as possible-three is usually enough unless you have multiple headings or blocks of text that need to be separated. This will help you use less paper overall when printing out letters, and it can save you time when sending messages electronically because they’ll look cleaner in the email message itself.
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#6 – Achieving Consistency With A Letter Head Maker
When designing your letterhead, make sure to use the same font throughout the entire design. Additionally, choose a specific color and use it consistently in all elements of your template. You can vary the size and weight (bold vs. regular) of fonts to add emphasis or draw attention to certain details, but never use more than two different fonts on a single document and always choose ones that you know work well together.
Consistent spacing is also vital: maintaining margins and tracking ensures that letters look professional and uniform across all documents without looking too crowded or unreadable. If you need help with letter spacing, there are several guides available online.
#7 – Put It All Together
You’re almost done! Once you have individual elements like your logo, color scheme, font selection, and spacing finalized, it only takes a few more steps to complete your letterhead template. First, use one or several of the design tips above (font size changes are good for emphasizing certain words) to draw attention to specific parts of letters.
This could be where you need recipients to sign documents or make an important note related to the content of the message. You can also choose special paper colors-including off-white or bluish tints-for these elements, so they stand out from the rest of the page even more.
#8 – Create Separate Pages
Once you’ve created a professional letterhead template in a word processing program, it’s time to save it as a file that you can use again and again. The easiest way to do this is by saving each page as a separate file-this will allow you to print individual letters without having the entire letterhead design waste paper. However, most people aren’t printing off single pages, so it’s best to save your template as a PDF so you can email or upload it with other documents for convenience purposes.
#9 – Use With Other Documents
Your letterhead is not designed to stand alone! Most templates also include blank lines where information can be inserted using word processing programs like Microsoft Word. This blank space allows users to personalize their message and ensure that there is enough room for any handwritten notes or comments that recipients might want or need. Additionally, this section usually includes spaces for things like phone numbers, email addresses, and URLs for official websites.
#10 – Save & Share Along With Other Letter Examples
When you’ve finished creating a letterhead template, it’s time to share it with others so they can copy or download the design. You can do this in two different ways: first, by saving the file as either an Adobe Illustrator (AI) or PDF file so people can’t alter the content of your template; second, by using sharing programs that allow you to send large amounts of data or documents to multiple recipients at once.
Many popular free services including Dropbox, Google Drive, and Box also allow users to save files for later use without requiring any special software installations on their computers. Whatever method you choose, just make sure that the people you send your letterhead template to can access it and use the program that’s required to open it.
Are you looking for letterhead templates and designs? Go to Venngage and select from many available examples to help you achieve that professional-looking letterhead template.
