Need directions on how to gain more control over graphical design of header/footers

Question

I have a design of a letterhead which contains a header and a footer as seen below in ASCII-form. As you can see it contains a header and a footer which have both above and below a horizontal ruler. These rulers have color (ie: are not black) and more than 1 pixel high. Within those two horizontal ruler is text. In the header it has three text blocks, two lined out on the left, the 3rd lined out to the right. The footer just contains a line of text. Above a header is a logo, which partly falls out of the page-margins.

It seems fairly simple, however I am not very advanced when it comes to LaTeX. I have many people seen recommend the fancyhdr package in similar cases and took a look at it, but have not yet found out what is the best to start with. Anyone who can give me at least some directions on where to look to accomplish such a thing?

                                  a logo above
                            which partly falls                                  
                                of page-margin
--------------------------------------
text    text                      text
block1  block2                  block3
--------------------------------------
this is where the header has ended and
the actual page starts

with lots of text

lorem ipsum and the likes

this is where the page ends and a 
footer comes in
--------------------------------------
this is a footer with some text
--------------------------------------
               page#

Answer 1

Here's a possible option using the background package; the footer and header are placed as background material. Of course, depending on your actual settings, some dimensions will have to be adjusted:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{fourier}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{lipsum}

\definecolor{rulecolor}{RGB}{188,71,71}

\newcommand\fieldi{text1}
\newcommand\fieldii{text2}
\newcommand\fieldiii{text3}
\newcommand\fieldiv{text4}
\newcommand\fieldv{text5}
\newcommand\fieldvi{text6}

\newcommand\footertext{text text text}

\newcommand\ColRule{%
  {\noindent\color{rulecolor}\rule{\textwidth}{1.5pt}}}

\newcommand\Header{%
  \noindent\makebox[\textwidth][l]{\parbox{1.2\textwidth}{%
    \hfill\includegraphics[height=2cm]{cc}}}\par\vskip1ex%
  \ColRule\par\noindent
  \begin{tabular*}{\textwidth}%
    {@{}>{\raggedright}p{.25\textwidth}@{}>{\raggedright}p{.25\textwidth}@{}>{\raggedleft}p{.5\textwidth}@{}}
    \fieldi & \fieldii & \fieldiii \tabularnewline
    \fieldiv & \fieldv & \fieldvi \tabularnewline
  \end{tabular*}\par\ColRule\par}

\newcommand\Footer[1]{%
\ColRule\par
\noindent\begin{tabular*}{\textwidth}{@{}>{\raggedright}p{\textwidth}@{}}
\footertext
\end{tabular*}\par\vskip-1.5ex\ColRule\par\centering\thepage\par}

\usepackage{background}
\SetBgColor{black}
\SetBgAngle{0}
\SetBgScale{1}
\SetBgOpacity{1}
\SetBgContents{%
  \begin{tikzpicture}[remember picture,overlay]
  \node at (0,0.6\textheight) {\parbox{\textwidth}{\Header}};
  \node at (0,-0.55\textheight) {\parbox{\textwidth}{\Footer}};
  \end{tikzpicture}
}

\pagestyle{empty}

\begin{document}

\lipsum[1-20]

\end{document}

The creative commons logo was taken from here.

And here's a solution using fancyhdr; as you can see, all the job was done with the definitions of \Header and \Footer; once these definitions are made, it is a matter of personal taste whether to follow the background or the fancyhdr approach:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[tmargin=1cm,bmargin=6cm,includehead,includefoot]{geometry}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{fourier}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage{fancyhdr}

\definecolor{rulecolor}{RGB}{188,71,71}

\newcommand\fieldi{text1}
\newcommand\fieldii{text2}
\newcommand\fieldiii{text3}
\newcommand\fieldiv{text4}
\newcommand\fieldv{text5}
\newcommand\fieldvi{text6}

\newcommand\footertext{text text text}

\newcommand\ColRule{%
  {\noindent\color{rulecolor}\rule{\textwidth}{1.5pt}}}

\newcommand\Header{%
  \noindent\makebox[\textwidth][l]{\parbox{1.2\textwidth}{%
    \hfill\includegraphics[height=2cm]{cc}}}\par\vskip1ex%
  \ColRule\par\noindent
  \begin{tabular*}{\textwidth}%
    {@{}>{\raggedright}p{.25\textwidth}@{}>{\raggedright}p{.25\textwidth}@{}>{\raggedleft}p{.5\textwidth}@{}}
    \fieldi & \fieldii & \fieldiii \tabularnewline
    \fieldiv & \fieldv & \fieldvi \tabularnewline
  \end{tabular*}\par\ColRule\par}

\newcommand\Footer[1]{%
\ColRule\par
\noindent\begin{tabular*}{\textwidth}{@{}>{\raggedright}p{\textwidth}@{}}
\footertext
\end{tabular*}\par\vskip-1.5ex\ColRule\par\centering\thepage\par}

\fancyhf{}
\fancyhead[C]{\Header}
\fancyfoot[C]{\Footer}
\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt}
\setlength\headheight{107.4pt}
\pagestyle{fancy}

\begin{document}

\lipsum[1-20]

\end{document}