How to Make a Stationery Set

Making your own stationery set is a fun, creative project.

Even as electronic communications dominate over more traditional means of correspondence, a piece of stationery can make a striking impact upon its recipient. If you frequently send letters or print business documents on paper, design your own personalized stationery. In additional to the practical impact it can have on the presentation of your work, it will be an enriching creative outlet.

Instructions

1. Decide which paper you'd like to use. Although the design elements you choose to include on your stationery will aid you in personalizing your paper and/or envelopes, the color, texture and quality of the paper is also extremely important. Select a durable paper you will enjoy for at least as long as you first batch of stationery lasts. Match your envelopes with it, if you are buying them.

2. Open a blank document, either in your word processor or in a free drawing tool such as "SumoPaint" or "OpenOffice." If you choose to use a drawing tool rather than a word processor, set the image size to correspond with the size of your paper and/or envelopes. You can do this in the "Page Setup" option of the "File" menu if using a word processor.

3. Incorporate any text you wish into your stationery. For business stationery, for example, you might wish to print your address and phone number across the bottom. On a word processor, enter the "Footer" of the document and type in the text you need. If you're using a drawing suite, click the "T" button to create a text book and type any information you need into it. No matter which option you use, format the text according to the look you want to create, keeping in mind not only font, but typeface ("bold" or "italic," for example), size and color.

4. Dress up your stationery with graphics, keeping in mind that simplicity tends to be the best policy.You will print other things on top of your stationery, eventually. Keep the bulk of your designs and shapes out of the typical printed area of the page, as these may impair readability later on.

5. Design your envelopes. As is the case with the letterhead itself, you can use either a word processor (some of which have envelope "wizards") or drawing software. Envelopes should be even less elaborate to avoid rejection by the postal service.

6. Print a test run of one document to proof for errors and to make sure this is the layout you want. Afterward, print as many as you need to complete your stationery set.

References

• Quazen: How to Make Your Own Stationery