More Help for Printing Envelopes

Mike and I print 300 colored envelopes when it’s time to send our prayer letters (and use attractive commemorative stamps). But there’s more to printing envelopes than this regular routine.

Cru Fonts

If you have a Cru logo on your envelope, you should also be using Cru fonts in the designated ways. (Download the Style Guide.) According to the guide, you’ll place the color logo in the return address area. See the guide for sizes and placement. You’ll print a return address in upper- and lowercase in Freight Sans Pro Book font. I would choose a Cru font for the main address for consistency. The Arial and Times New Roman would be the easiest to use.

Using Less Ink and Saving Money

If your envelope has no Cru branding, consider choosing fonts that are less expensive. Ink is 60% of the cost of a printed page. Consider saving the cost of ink by choosing your fonts wisely.

In this Mashable article, 14-Year-Old Proves U.S. Can Save $370 Million by Changing Fonts, a middle schooler compared four fonts. He determined Garamond used the least ink. I also learned of a university choosing Century Gothic as their default typeface. They claimed it used the least ink, even 30% less than Arial.

The following list of fonts compares different typefaces. I’ve included Garamond, Century Gothic, and three of the four Cru official fonts. All are font size 12. I didn’t make any of these bold either. You can tell that some fonts use more ink. You’ll notice three of the fonts would be better at font size 14.

You  may need to choose one of these smaller fonts to fit lengthy addresses on your envelope. Or, you might make different choices if your envelope is smaller.

Sometimes, you’ll want to choose fonts for their readability and/or artistic look.

Take Advantage of Postal Services

You should be instructing the U. S. Postal Service (USPS) what you would like them to do if your letter is undeliverable.

This USPS guide explains where to place your service request and all your options (ADDRESS, RETURN, CHANGE, and FORWARDING). Choose the one you’d prefer. We use the address service. We print “ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED” under all our return addresses on our prayer letter envelopes. USPS forwards our letter to our ministry partner and then sends us their new address for a small fee. If USPS cannot forward our letter, it’s returned with the reason marked on the envelope.

NOTES:

• This post is in the Printer and Printer Tips series.
• Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash