OK, here’s the deal. We really all need to get on the same page about the “Electronic Letterhead”. I know some of you would like to do-it-yourself, but really, you can’t. The easiest, best way for you to have your own personalized letterhead template for ‘Word’ is to go thru Printing Services. For the minimal one-time fee  of $20, for setting up the file, you will have a “correct” template to work with, and if you need some letterhead printed at a later date, Printing Services will already have the file. So really its a no brainer, call Kathy McKinstry at 4-4253 or email her at kmkinstry.uri.edu. Don’t make me have to come to your office and lecture you in person. I applaud your initiative in these trying times, but the larger goal needs to be kept in mind. The brand image needs to be consistent for it to succeed on campus and off. -The good cop. (Not the bad cop…yet.)

Thanks to the first four entrants in the e-letterhead review. Jokingly I said I’d give you a grade on your entry, this probably put some of you off. Actually the first four cover the grade gamut. Everyone forgot about the affirmative action statement at the bottom of the page. If your letter goes off campus, it really should have this, if your letter/memo stays internal, you can omit it. Illustrating the goal to be attained is the sample below of the letterhead file produced by Printing Services.

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Wow, seems to be quite a groundswell of you making your own ‘electronic letterhead’. I applaud your initiative in going green and saving on printing costs. However we all need to be on the same page with this. As easy as it is to assemble the pieces, its also easy to do it wrong. Yes, there is a right way and a wrong way to do this. Maybe I didn’t get the word out enough. The way I thought would be best for everyone was to have Printing Services provide you with the correct layout and files so all you need to do is put it into your template. I guess this may seem too limiting. Not having seen many examples of your work, I can’t determine how off course we are. Please email me an attachment of what you’ve done for your electronic letterhead and I’ll get back to you with a grade on how well you did. Meanwhile please contact Printing Services at least for advice if not the real thing. The main purpose of using the brand is using it uniformly throughout the campus.

If you really, really want to do-it-yourself, use the layout of Letterhead Style B (page 22 in the Style Guide). You should use the logo with entity for your area, and use a sans serif font (Ariel, Helvetica) for your personal/office information. I’d stay away from using the brandmark, but if you must, please test it for clarity before using.

One of the main elements of of the Brand look is the Brand Bar which is the stripe at the top or bottom of visual graphic layouts such as publication covers, brochures, advertisements, posters, and other pieces. It can also be used in electronic presentations, web pages, and videos.

The Brand Bar generally consists of four elements: a dark stripe of color (black or a dark blue matching PMS 282), an optional subtle photographic image superimposed on top of the stripe, the URI logo or the logo with entity, and (optionally) the Brandmark with Tag Line.

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Create your own branded email signature by opening one of the logo files in Photoshop and proportionally resize it to 1.5 inches wide. Smaller than this it will look too fuzzy in the email. Choose the Save for Web option and select the png file format and save the file to your hard drive. Depending on your email software, you can copy and paste, or drag copy this file into your email signature window. Put the logo at the top of your signature with one blank line space between it and your name. Depending on your results you might want to try the jpg or gif file. If you don’t have access to Photoshop, just drag one of the logos below and copy to your email.

PNG file, 4.7 KB

JPG file, 24.6 KB

GIF file, 293 bytes

To use any of the Brand artwork files in a PowerPoint presentation, open the eps file in Photoshop and choose the Save for Web option. Choose the png file format and save to your hard drive. This format is the default image format for most Microsoft products, so it will also work in Word files as well as Powerpoint.

Below is are two png banners that could be used at the bottom of a PowerPoint screen. It is 10 x 1.5 inches. You can drag this graphic to you desktop and then add it to you Powerpoint presentation.

The artwork above has a white rectangle behind the “Think Big. We Do. and globe. It is slightly larger in file size (80K) than the artwork below. If you presentation has a white background, use this file.

The artwork above has a transparent background behind the “Think Big. We Do. and globe. It is slightly smaller in file size (74K) than the artwork above. If you presentation has a color background, use this file.