Despite the trend towards electronic mail today, letterheads remain an integral part of a brand’s stationary. Putting some thought into designing your letterhead can be a great way to make a good first impression with your customers and showcase your logo.
Struggling to find an elaborate, colorful, monochromatic or minimalistic design? Not sure where to start? We’ve put together some key tips along with some examples to help you and your business make a great first impression!
1. Keep the focus on the logo
In this letterhead, designer Seth Addison highlights this stylish and elegant logo. The logo is clearly displayed in the top left hand corner of the letterhead and is highlighted by its surrounding white space. The contrast against the muted color palette of the background keeps the focus where you want it to be - on the logo design.
2. Use exaggerated fonts to showcase your creativity
There’s no denying the instant eye-catching appeal of elaborate fonts. Elaborate fonts with exaggerated swishes create a delightful play of letters that draw the eye of the reader. This styling found on Dribbble works perfectly to showcase creativity and originality.
3. Gold lettering highlights sophistication and luxury
This simplistic letterhead owned by Classique Occasions is timeless in its design and adds a classic touch to any project. The combination of fonts in gold on a floral watermarked background is an excellent representation of sophistication and elegance.
4. Frame your letterhead
This letterhead designed for Vantage College Advisors makes smart use of their simple yet strong monochromatic logo. The logo, which is a prominent V symbol, is placed at the top in the of the page and extends to form a simple yet powerful frame for the entire letterhead.
5. Keep it minimalistic
DAUM & CO’s letterhead design showcases minimalism at its best. It uses only the company’s bespoke circular marquee on one side of the letterhead so that there are no distractions from the main message. The muted colors and the positioning of the logo on the letterhead create an overall vision of refined elegance.
6. Showcase your services with smart graphics
This Marox letterhead is cleverly designed with the logo positioned at the bottom of the page and graphics showcased along the side. The downward arrows in shades of blue printed along the left edge of the page reflect the company’s motto of stability and reliability whilst also serving as a vector towards the logo.
7. Use an embossed logo on textured paper
This letterhead plays with your sense of touch and adds an additional physical element to the feel of the design. This design uses high grade textured paper and consists of a 3 dimensional logo embossed in the top centre of the letterhead. The complementary colors sit softly in the background, leaving the focus on the texture.
8. Feature elements of your vision
Gather & Co’s letterhead draws inspiration from a traditional basket weave, which is core to their organic brand vision. The weaved pattern was also used to create the border of the letterhead, showcasing the vision of the business.
9. Use bright colors sparingly
When your brand design features bright and bold colors, it may be best to use it sparingly in the letterhead and let your envelop showcase your whole brand. This letterhead is simple yet does a great job of highlighting these bold colours on the packaging.
10. Give a warm welcome
This Communications & Co. letterhead consists of two components – graphics and content. The letterhead integrates both of these components beautifully playing up the ‘Hello’ featured at the bottom of the page, serving as a warm welcome to readers.
11. Include a watermark background
If you have a specific watermark image that you want to incorporate into your letterhead design, the best way to do so is by using it as a background image, like the letterhead design featured below. This allows you to showcase your design while still keeping the page distraction-free.
12. Add vibrance with eye-catching patterns
This floral letterhead found on Design and Paper, adds a fresh and feminine touch to this design. The front of the letterhead features an elegant border whilst the back showcases a floral pattern, adding vibrance to the design.
13. Showcase your brand through icons
Are you looking to add visuals to your messages? Using icons in your letterhead design is a great way to help engage customers with your content. Not only will they add variation, they can influence the mood of your customer, brighten up the content and bring your letterhead to life.
14. Add a brail to engage all your audience
This letterhead found on Behance uses a rooftop graphic to reflect its brand name with their logo featured on the bottom of the page. The brail featured offers a great touch for readers that are visually impaired - a great way to engage all your audience.
15. Use quirky colours
If your brand identity consists of several colors then featuring them in your letterhead can be a great way to grab your reader's attention. Incorporate some color into your design for a vibrant touch for your audience.
16. Use a security pattern
Featuring a security pattern on your designs is a great way to protect your content from unintended readers. This letterhead has a security pattern on the back of the design as well as on its envelope. In addition to the security, it also gives your letterhead a beautifully textured look and feel.
17. Showcase your product’s quality
This Levendra letterhead features well positioned design elements that reflect the brands well known lavender herbs. The stamp on the label highlights the trustworthy work ethic of the brand and features a unique statement on the rim: ‘with love and care’.
18. Include eye-catching visuals with pop art
This Studio Botes letterhead features a great display of black and white pop art positioned along the bottom border. This comic style letterhead give a hand drawn feel to any design and can be a great way to stand out to your audience.
19. Pay attention to detail
This Tabarka Studio letterhead uses embossed lettering to showcase their logo on richly textured paper. The letterhead makes great use of the well-spaced positioning of elements, geometric sans-serif logo type and diamond frames, a great attention to detail and design.
20. Play on the contrast
Using contrasting colours can be a great way to make an impact with your designs. The black and yellow contrast on this letterhead captures the reader's attention and draws the audience to the brightly presented yellow logo.
21. Use a frame template
Design agency, Anagrama applied a frame template to their letterhead design for Cocolobo, a high end shopping boutique. Designing a framed letterhead gives your projects a unique look as it allows you to personalize your style with the colors of your brand - a simple yet effective touch!
22. Create drama with clever use of black
Black is not a color that is typically used in letterheads but that does not mean you should discount it completely. Using black on the underside of your letterhead can create a stunning touch of drama.
23. Use a monochromatic color palette
24. Feature a bold font
This letterhead uses bold fonts at the center top of the page to highlight the business name. Contact details are listed below in a smaller yet prominent font. The rest of the page is simple and clean so that focus remains on the content.
25. Use vibrant colour schemes
Colors add life, emotion and meaning to everything we see. Adding the right color combination to your letterhead is the perfect way to create the tone you want for your messages.Using a loud colour like red or orange will help get your designs noticed!
26. Showcase your logo
Your logo is often the first impression you can make to your customers and is the face of your company. So why not showcase it in your letterhead design? When you have a logo that is likely to use up a lot of space on the page, positioning it properly can make a difference in the impact of your design. Here the oversized D is placed cleverly against the left edge of the page with contact details immediately below!
27. Use geometric design
In this letterhead, geometric design is applied for an artistic and sophisticated feel to the page.
The small-sized version of the geometric logo sits simply on the page, allowing its amplified design to shine at the bottom right hand corner- a great way to make an impact!
28. Apply elegant edge painting
In this letterhead, every element reflects class, luxury and sophistication, from the gold lettering and the rich texture of the paper to the gold edge painting.This is an excellent choice of letterhead for a luxury hotel or any business offering luxury services.
29. Create a one-of-a-kind letterhead using your signature
Nothing is as unique as your signature. When you incorporate your signature into your letterhead, your readers will know that it is unique, just like you. Using your signature is a great way to showcase your personal brand.
30. A splash of color gives your letterhead a playful look
Letterheads don’t necessarily have to be crisp and professional. A splash of bright color adds a playful tone that offsets the simple, bold logo. The combination is fun and vibrant!
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