Letterheads tell a lot about the person and the company bearing the message. Most businesspeople and other professionals expect certain text, image, layout and print elements in most letterheads that mark them as a true professional work. Without these professional elements, your letterhead printing won’t have the real respect that it needs from its readers. So take a moment and remember the items listed below. These are the things professionals expect from your color letterheads. Make sure that you have all these elements.

• Complete business details – Readers expect the complete business details or personal information in most letterheads. This is because a letterhead is not merely a decorative design of course. It is also a business card of sorts. You will want people to be able to know where you are from and how to contact you with your letterheads. This helps encourage readers to respond to your letters with color letterheads a little bit faster. So besides the name and the title, do not forget to add the address, telephone and mobile numbers, email, website, and other contact information and business details. The more you put in, the more reliable your letterheads will look.

• Professional fonts – Readers will also expect professional font styles in your custom letterheads. It might be tempting for you to use custom fonts that look very creative and distinctive, however it is best to use fonts that are simpler and look more professional. Even common fonts like Arial and Times New Roman can be considered professional looking since they are easy to understand even from afar. Readers will of course appreciate the simplicity of these professional fonts, and thus you should always try to use them. Leave all those super-creative font styles behind for letterhead printing.

• Proper text formatting – Most audiences also expect you to practice proper text formatting in your color letterheads. Typically you will want to vary the size and the typefaces of some of your text to emphasize certain parts of it.

For example, it is good to make the name of the person or the name of the company in larger font sizes, while the supporting and explanatory text can have smaller sizes. You might also want to make that name formatted in bold text, while the other information should be done in regular, with some uses of italics for special words or indicators. Varying these things should help emphasize the right things to people so make sure you practice proper text formatting.

• High resolution logos and images – All readers will expect high-resolution images in your letterheads. If they see fuzzy or distorted logos and images, the chances of impressing more people become slim. That is why you should get your images right from the original source (such as the actual scanned image, or the image from a digital camera). These original sources should give the best high resolution images that you can which are fit for letterhead printing of course.

• Distinct business identity – Finally, most letterhead readers expect that you always show your distinct business identity in your letterheads. The choice of colors, images and even the slogans or titles within the letterhead are considered part of what business image you are trying to communicate. So make sure that you really decide on these colors, images and text content carefully. People expect that you communicate your business image well in your color letterheads.

So those are the things your readers will expect from your letterheads. Make sure that you bring them what they want and deed for the sake of success in your letterhead printing. Good luck!

Steve J. Perkins is a specialist of brochure printing and is also a graphic designer. He is dedicated in the printing industry and continues to support the developments in the field to help out companies in their business marketing and advertising needs.

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