Letter Header Box

Top right of a formal business letter. Just underneath the letterhead logo of sender. Opposite side to recipient address.

Seen this kind of treatment before?

I got into the habit a while back adopting the technique of online mag pieces. Where they'd use the marker such as 5 MIN READ. At the top of the page, under title, next to byline and date stamp.

I still use this on occasion. At the outset of a prospective relationship. Normally when answering a specific query from a potential client.

Indeed, the blog platform used as I post this, does the same trick inside. Though it calculates on the basis of 200 words a minute reading speed. I tend to feel this to ambitious. Lowering reader pressure by at least a quarter.

The style above though, goes well beyond this.

Similar can be spotted around the web today. With a couple of summary lines relating to such like 'topic' and 'takeaway' stated upfront.

There is though something quite striking about the design in the above case.

Specifically the lower part.

Subject matter feels a fairly routine statement. A bit too much of an email subject line expansion.

The other expression though, could well be a sales winner.

Do I need to do anything?

It reminds me so much of the pre-close (note, as distinct from the possibly flawed 'trial close' of the machine gun gurus) I myself used with such affect in my earliest cubrep days.

Where you'd start a presentation, meeting or conversation stating from the outset how the purpose was for them to commit.

I even think here about the reverse psychology of contrary framing. How about something like this to remix for subsequent explanatory text;

No, unless you sense there can be somehow, somewhere, no matter how slight, an important and better way of doing things.