Letterhead
The letterhead or stationery or letterhead is a single- or double-sided pre-printed format sheet of paper for private or business epistolary correspondence , the personalized text and / or data to be added. The letterhead serves to simplify work in the office and the corporate design of the sender. The letterhead is a endbeschnittenes and equipped crude .
Appearance
As a rule , letterheads consist of better writing or copier paper with a letterhead that has been applied in any printing process and usually contains relevant sender information. The business letterhead typically contains the following sender details: the company name with legal form , the postal address , the communication data ( e.g. telephone number, email address and fax), a logo (if usual), a reserved field for the recipient 's address , a reference line (your letter vom ..., your reference from ..., file number, clerk, date), a text field and at the foot the visiting address, bank details and, if applicable, the Internet address and the VAT identification number . If there is a logography , it is usually printed on top. Small sorter, fold and / or perforation marks are often preprinted for internal use and for easier archiving . Additional or advertising information can be applied in light type on the back (for example general terms and conditions or information on current promotions).
In Germany, business letterhead is mostly cut in A4 paper format and should be writable with common printers or a typewriter. The paper quality should be easy to write on with liquid writing materials (inks, inks), dry toners and printer inks as well as foldable and hard-sounding. In this respect, one should pay attention to the note "Laser and inkjet printer suitable" for letterhead paper. It is customary to manufacture the paper from softwood pulp with significant additions of linters , hardwood pulps and raw material . Letterhead papers are generally uncoated and fully sized .
The design of the basic layout and the marginal or field marks in Germany is based on DIN 676 , and the subsequent writing of a letter on a preprinted letterhead is based on DIN 5008 sample letter. Letterhead in the business sector are in the broadest sense forms . Private stationery usually only contains the postal address and some telecommunications data. With business letterheads you should make sure that, depending on the legal form of the company, certain information is required, such as B. Managing director, entry in the commercial register, VAT ID no. or tax number. Of course there is a lot more useful address data on letterhead. Often, general terms and conditions are also printed on the back of letterheads.
More elegant stationery can be provided with watermarks or specially equipped (for example linen embossing, hammer blow, inlaid inlays). The typical grammage range is 70-120 g / m². The paper is usually simply applied and made more opaque than printing paper. When cutting letterheads for machine processing, the narrow web is preferred so that the paper curls as little as possible, especially when it is subsequently printed with a laser printer. With regard to watermarks, a distinction is made between the quality levels “with pass watermark” and “with passport watermark” or “with format watermark”.
The standard paper for letterhead is also known as offset paper. Higher qualities go under the category of fine papers. A well-known, exclusive paper quality is "genuinely hand-made handmade paper with or without individual watermarks".
The letterhead should be adapted to the envelope and folded no more than twice in a letter fold, fanfold or cross fold (appearance). Letterhead in A4 format are therefore in envelopes of formats C6 (postcard format with cross-fold) or C6L ( DL ) with winding or Leporello folding (or "zig-zag fold") envelopes . For simple mail, the letterhead should not be heavier than 80 g / m², otherwise special postage is incurred from three sheets in the envelope .
Greeting cards and condolence cards are similar to letterheads, as they are also forms for (private) correspondence. However, they are much smaller in size, often pre -folded, and consist of high-quality cardboard from 120 g / m². Typical for this type of preprint are grammages around 200–240 g / m² with a one-sided line.
history
Forms in correspondence have been known in Italy since the 17th century. They became widespread, especially during and after the French Revolution. However, they only experienced their breakthrough because of the lithography developed by Alois Senefelder from 1796 to 1798 . The 19th century was the heyday of richly designed letterheads, including factory and building views, as well as allegorical depictions.
various
The German Minister of Economic Affairs Jürgen Möllemann , who died in 2003, resigned from his position in 1993 due to the letterhead affair , because he had misused the stationery of his ministry for lobbying .
literature
- Ernst Lehner: The Letterhead. History and Progress. New York 1955
- Georg Steinhausen: History of the German letter. On the cultural history of the German people. Dublin / Zurich 1968 [unchanged. Reprint d. Output v. 1889/1891]
Web links
- Collection of stationery from Stars , Spiegel Online, one day