Note to Printer: This is a re-write of something I saw years ago and I have been using it for almost two decades - changing it periodically. When a customer comes in to have us create a letterhead, envelope and business card for them, the first thing we do is give them this and go over it with them. This, along with the paper glossary, the sheet about our company, and the sheet about the various types of printing are our most popular Customer Information Sheets. To port this into your word processor and edit for your own use, use the file LH&BC.TXT. Your Letterhead, Envelope & Business Card Letterheads are one of the most abused art forms in history, so we will attempt herein to minimize such mayhem. Think of the letterheads you have seen which seem to defy you to ferret out the simple information you want, such as the name of the company. Have you ever seen one which used type so fancy and complex that it is unreadable? It is not a common occurrence, but it does happen. Other common mistakes are using vertical letters running down one side of the sheet and putting necessary information, such as the address and phone number across the bottom. Why make the customer or client hunt out such information. Perhaps the worst abuse is using a script or other fancy type style in all capital letters. To read such a design is virtually impossible - even by a typographer who has years of experience working with alphabets. Keep it Simple A good letterhead or business card will contain the following information: 1. The company name in readable type. 2. An attractive company logo which will, at a glance, bring that company to mind. 3. Street address (for incoming shipments) and P.O. Box (if any) with the ZIP code for each. Use the ZIP +, which you can get from your postmaster. 4. Area code and phone number or numbers. 5. FAX number and area code, if any. 6. Company motto, if any. 7. One line giving an idea as to the company's line of business. All of this should be easily found and easily read. The same information should be put on the upper left hand corner of the envelope. Some businesses put the phone number on the envelope -- why not? Putting the return address on the flap of the envelope is not a good idea. It serves no useful purpose, is more difficult for the Post Office to find in case the letter must be returned, and some printers charge more to print because there is greater spoilage in printing on the flap, and the press must be run slower. The same information should be put on business cards with the addition of the person's name and in some cases, the person's home phone number and/or title. For many years, abbreviations were not acceptable on letterheads and other business stationery. This is still true with a few exceptions. ZIP codes have made 2 letter abbreviations for states a common thing. Also, "Inc." "Co.", "Corp.", and the ampersand (&) are entirely acceptable. Many people try to crowd all kinds of information on a business card. This is a red flag denoting non professionalism. Only the essential information should go on the face of your business card. If you need information other than that noted above in 1-7, you should use either a two-sided card or a folding card, so that the essential information stands out alone. Remember that approximately half the population of the U.S. wears glasses or contact lenses. So select easily read type. Fine print can lose customers. Personal Stationery Years ago, phone numbers were never used on personal stationery, but today off-hour long distance calls are so inexpensive that it is not unusual to respond to a letter by phone. So today, a phone number on personal stationery is acceptable -- a good idea, in fact. Clip Art Your printer has a very large selection of clip art which may be used on your business or personal stationery. The clip art is indexed and cross indexed for ease of location. You are encouraged to take the time to look through the clip art library and select the piece you feel most appropriate. If you locate the piece you wish to use, your only charge is that of a stat to reproduce the illustration to the appropriate size. Don't be in a Hurry Please take the time to look through the samples, clip art and type styles. It can take the typographer anywhere from a couple of minutes to several hours to locate just the right piece of clip art for your job, then you have to approve it. The typographer's time is billed on an hourly basis, so by selecting your own clip art you can save anywhere from $7.50 to $100 or more by taking the time to go through the library and select the piece yourself. It is not uncommon for a company to spend several hundred (or even thousands of dollars) to have a letterhead, business card or envelope designed. The vast majority of that expense is the time it took the designer to find or create just the right design (and yes, some of the most expensively designed pieces have clip art elements in them). If you provide the necessary information, your printer can design and typeset your letterhead, business card and envelope for a nominal fee. If you are unable to find just the right piece, he has commercial artists who can create an appropriate piece for you. There are many other sources for clip art. Consider the "Yellow Pages", magazines, etc. Your printer can use any good, sharp illustration - preferably black on white or black on some light color paper. Remember, the camera thinks that red is the same as black, so if your copy is printed black on red paper, the camera sees only all black and cannot separate the two. The camera will not recognize light colors such as yellow, blue, etc., so illustrations printed in those light colors cannot be used as art. Metallic colors such as gold, silver or bronze do not reproduce acceptably either. Cost Your cost for a letterhead, business card and envelope that we design can range from a few dollars for nothing more than three or four lines of standard type and an illustration -- to several hundred dollars for a totally custom designed package where the logo and layout is created by the printer or a commercial artist. In many cases, the customer's business and personal stationery requirements can be filled by using one of the professionally designed layouts that the printer has in his files. Keep in mind, as noted above, the majority of the cost of a design is the time it took to come up with it. If you ask to have a design created from scratch, it is very difficult to provide even an estimate. That's like asking "How high is up?". If you are lucky, you may like the first one or two designs the artist comes up with. On the other hand, you may spend several hundred dollars and still not like any of the designs, and you end up with a large bill and no design. What it boils down to is that your printer is capable of producing whatever you are willing to pay for. The more information you give him as to what your desires are, the less time the artist will spend creating the art for that design. You will receive the camera ready art for the items ordered. This same art can be enlarged or reduced to use for newspaper ads, flyers, brochures, etc. Logo sheets can be purchased if you feel you will need numerous copies of logos for ads or other material. They are far less expensive than making stats or Veloxes every time you need a logo. Each logo sheet will contain camera ready art for your logo in several different sizes. Reproducing an Existing Package If you already have business stationery and want your printer to reproduce it, all he need is a good, clean copy to photograph. If you have the original artwork, that is even better. Copyright 1988, C.D. "Cy" Stapleton, Lufkin, Texas