What is a company Letterhead? Plus 7 design tips

In an digital world, premium business stationery is a breath of fresh air. For example, a letterhead. Something that was once considered an office staple, alongside crystal carafes and wall-length bookcases, but has now been mostly replaced by email signatures. But what is a letterhead, exactly? And why does it still matter?

In short, a letterhead is a piece of branded stationery that features a company’s name, logo and key contact or business information, usually at the top or around the edges of a letter or other formal document. A company letterhead helps make official correspondence feel more recognizable, and adds weight to important messages. Fancy, right? 

Whether you’re looking to create a Letterhead from scratch or give an existing one a makeover, here’s what to include, plus seven design tips to help you make it something you’ll be happy to use for years to come.

What is a letterhead used for?

First things first: what is a company letterhead? You may use emails and phone calls for most of your business communication, but sometimes, a printed letter is a better fit..

Maybe it’s a formal letter of appointment or an agreement in writing with a new supplier. Maybe you’re writing to confirm an employee bonus (and including a very welcome check), or perhaps you’ve been asked to supply a statement, reference, or other formal document on company-headed paper.

Whatever the occasion, a company letterhead can take your message beyond an everyday channel like Slack or email. It’s a small detail, but it’s a simple way to make formal correspondence feel important and professional.

What goes on a letterhead? 

The trick is to include enough information to make your identity clear without cramming the page full of letterhead content. Think about how and where your letterhead will be used, too. Will it be shared across multiple business locations? Is there a chance you’ll move offices? If so, a fixed head-office address may not be the most future-proof choice. 

The same goes for email addresses and websites: only include details you’re confident will stay relevant. A company email address, such as hello@yourbusinessname.com, can be a useful option when the stationery will be shared by different people. 

At the very least, you’ll want to consider:

• Your company name
• Your logo
• Your contact details
• Your business address, where relevant
• Your website or email address, where useful
• Any legally required business information that applies to your region

What does a good letterhead look like?

A good letterhead can look surprisingly different from business to business. Some are minimal and typographic; others make a feature of color, illustration or photography.

What they have in common is that the design gives the letter content enough room to shine. Your letterhead is a supporting player, not the main event.

7 letterhead design tips

Now you know what belongs on a letterhead, it’s time for the fun part. Here are seven tips for designing a company letterhead that looks good, works hard, and feels true to your brand.

1. Start from your brand guidelines

Your brand guidelines can help you set some design parameters for your letterhead to make sure it’s in line with the rest of your business. It will help you save some time in picking out the right colors and the best fonts for your business letterhead, too. 

As well as looking at the practical guidelines like color, font, and sizing, review your brand values and company tone of voice. This will help make sure you’re expressing the complete brand personality rather than just a consistent visual impression. 

If you don’t have brand guidelines in place, revisit the work you’ve already done. Early designs, internal notes, and existing brand materials can all remind you who you are and how you want to be seen.

It’s also a good idea to gather the key assets that best represent your current brand. This could include your email templates, website, printed marketing materials like Business Cards, social profile pages, and product packaging. Seeing them all in one place will help you to picture your letterhead design and think of it as part of a wider brand ecosystem.

2. Choose the right font and size

What’s the best font for your company’s letterhead? The font you use on your letterhead may be one you’ve already picked as part of your brand identity, or you may be starting from scratch.

If it’s the latter, think about some of the basics  before you jump headlong into font websites and lists, as these kinds of resources can quickly become overwhelming if you don’t know what you’re looking for. 

Consider:

• Serif or sans serif?: Serif fonts can have a more traditional feel, while sans serif creates a more modern impression and may be easier to read when printed small. For that reason, the latter is often considered the best font for letterhead.

• Font family: Fonts come in families, with different weights and styles that share the same visual DNA. Choosing one with plenty of options can give you more flexibility while keeping your branding consistent.

• Font size: Consider the letterhead text size. Think about how big the pre-printed wording on your letterhead will be. The same font can look surprisingly different at different sizes, and will also look smaller when printed out than it does on screen. Remember too that the wording will sit alongside the content of a letter, which may be set in a different style or size. Print out a few ‘trial runs’ to make sure your chosen letterhead font looks great in all these situations. 

Once you know roughly what you’re looking for, you’re free to explore the wonderful world of fonts to find the one or two that will grace your company’s letterhead. Dafont, Typedepot, and Google Fonts are all places worth exploring during your search. Once you’ve found the best font and font size for your professional letterhead, you’ll be ready to move on to one of the most exciting steps: the layout.

3. Pick your layout

There are lots of different ways to set out a letterhead. As with other elements of your branding, you’re free to push the limits of convention and create your own approach. But if you’re comfortable sticking to the basics, there are a few tried and tested ways to lay out your letterhead that are worth knowing about. We’ll explore these here. 

With Printfinity, you can have up to 50 different designs within a single order, so there’s no requirement to limit yourself to a single layout. You could have a variety of letterheads for different purposes, or create custom ones for different people in the company.

Whatever you choose, remember that the goal is to create a canvas for a future letter, not a finished piece of artwork. Your branding and design should play a supporting role in the content of the finished letter and should never compete with or overwhelm the wording. If in doubt, keep your letterhead layout minimal. As with the font, try mocking up and printing a few variations to see what looks best. 

Here are a few basic layouts and letterhead best practices you can use as a starting point for your design.

• Full border: Color and design is placed all around the outside of the paper in a consistent square shape.

• Graphic border: Shapes and color frame the body copy in a more creative way.

• Header and footer: Design is restricted to the top and bottom of the page. Keep it relatively small compared to the letterhead size.

• Background graphics: Watermark-style graphics in a low-contrast shade across the body of the letter.

Worried about your letterhead’s format? If you don’t have time to worry about design, another option is to use a preset business letterhead template. Our online design tools include a large selection of business letterhead templates you can use as they are or customize to suit your own logo and colors. They range from minimalist text-only layouts to more creative designs with graphical elements and color on the back and front of the page.

4. Get the size and margins right

The right size and margins give your letterhead enough space for the content that comes after it.

Keep important information comfortably inside the edges of the page and leave plenty of space for the letter itself. Before printing, mock up a complete letter to make sure your branding doesn’t crowd the body copy.

For more detailed guidance, see our letterhead size and margin guidelines.

5. Choose your paper stock

As a general rule, the heavier-weight your paper is, the more premium and professional the end result will be. Beyond that, however, you have a few more options such as the paper finish (smooth or textured) and the color tone of the paper itself. White is the best choice for many businesses, but you may go for a warmer white, a cream or pale blue if it fits your brand.

MOO Letterheads are available on Original, a smooth paper stock designed for crisp print, or Luxe Mohawk Superfine, with a more textured finish.

6. Consider color

Your brand colors should be reflected in your letterhead design, but that doesn’t mean they all need to make an appearance, especially if your logo or company font is ornate or detailed. Remember, the letterhead is a supporting actor, not the star of the show. 

If you have a brand color palette, this is a great place to start from when choosing your colors. If not, revisit your logo design and choose two or three contrasting hues from it to act as your palette.

With MOO, you can print on both sides of the paper and add color or additional designs to the reverse, giving you more space to play with color and express your brand without compromising the letter’s content.

7. Complete the set: add other stationery

To get an even more cohesive feel for your finished letter, think about creating other bespoke Stationery to go with your letterhead, such as an Envelope or Notecards.

A letter that arrives with a handwritten note can create a more personal, thoughtful feel than a letter on its own, and is a handy way of adding a message that isn’t’ suitable for the main text.

Now you know how to design a custom letterhead. Creating more branded materials? Explore MOO Business Services for custom print solutions for your brand. To get started, fill in this simple form and one of our team members will be in touch shortly.