Don't Be a Letterhead: Think About Your Clients

by Cheryl Stephens

Reprinted from Briefly!

Most law firms design their letterhead to express their corporate personality. The justification may be that the firm's documentation should express the firm's professional image.

The problem with professional image is that it arises in the eye of the beholder -- the client. In the same way, your credibility doesn't reflect your honesty but whether the public believes you are honest.

Back to letterhead: when your client or some other person receives a message on your letterhead, what is their first impression? Do they perceive your firm to be friendly, direct, open, and easy to deal with? Or do they perceive your firm to be stuffy, top-heavy, old-fashioned, and a pain in the elbow? Which is the image you want to convey?

Psychological and neuro-linguistic research over the past 40 years tells us how to design letterhead that both creates a good impression and makes your information easier to read. Unfortunately, few law firms take these factors into account.

I recently spoke with two designers about the law firm approach to selecting letterhead and corporate graphic images. Two main issues arise:

So many partners have to inject their tastes and retain veto power that decisions are seldom based on clear-cut principles of design or a good balance of design factors.
The designs selected will reflect the firm self-image or desired professional image rather than the needs and tastes of the target clientele.

So, next time you redesign your letterhead, think of your clients first. Adopt client-centred design instead of lawyer-centred self-expression. Here are some points of advice for client-centred information design:

Text line length should be 5 inches - stretch it to 5 1/2 if you must. To encourage your writers to keep the text short, keep the design of your letterhead within the same margins as your text should be.
Make it easier for clients to annotate your letters by keeping the margin on one side wider than the other, for example: use a two inch margin on one side and a 1 inch margin on the other.
In the absence of an eye-catching graphic, the human eye begins reading from the upper right-hand corner of a page and rotates clockwise. For this reason, place your letterhead text along the right margin rather than the left.
Use at least 10 point type in your letterhead text to set the standard for the letter body. Point-size smaller than 8 is the source of public complaints about "fine-print" in legal documents. Clients older than 40 won't be happy to read any text under 10 point. If your clientele are senior citizens, use 12 point type.
Gothic or sans-serif type faces are appropriate for your letterhead text, but the letter body should be a serif or Roman type face. Serif faces are easier to read, sans-serif provides contrast in headings or logos.
Capital letters should be kept to a minimum. Capitalize words, not blocks of text. Don't combine two features like capitals and bold or underline or italics.
Maximize the contrast between ink and paper. For this purpose, the best choices in paper colour are still white or pale ivory or cream.