I saw a question on Reddit, regarding how to deliver a letterhead design to a client. The answer involved setting up a template in the appropriate software to enable the customer to print out letterhead automatically with their correspondence. When a client prints out their own letterhead what problem have we solved? Aren’t we using new technological affordances to create a watered-down facsimile of an old convention when we could just use the old convention? Look, it’s like a letterhead but not quite as good, but it is cheaper, so there is that.
Before websites, Twitter and Facebook, a letterhead was a main point of interaction with customers. It was more than contact info, it was a milestone. When you could afford stationary you were on your way. It was also an advertisement, it conveyed your values, it differentiated you from your competition. It did that with more than just the design. It was also about the materiality, the texture of the paper, the watermark, the method of printing, the matching elements. It was an identity.
There’s something about printing letterhead on a desktop printer that makes me sad. Is it about change or losing a tradition? A little bit sure, but it is also related to the slow divorce between printing and design. I am old enough to remember when design was as much craft as computer. We made things. The new letterhead is not correct, it is not the way that you make that thing. When the materiality is lost you also lose the cachet, and charm and vitality. It’s a different thing entirely, yet we call it by the same name and act like it’s the same thing.
This sounds terribly romantic. Don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating for going back, just for finding ways to hold onto some of the visceral qualities of graphic design. It may not be for everyone, but there are opportunities to help your clients stand out with good printing and good paper. These qualities are more than nostalgia, they can still be leveraged to a business advantage. At the very least you stop your clients from using copy paper for letterheads.