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NEX gift certificates are described as a great holiday gift idea. The document then discusses various headline styles including banner headlines, crossline headlines, and flush left headlines. It provides examples of these different headline forms and their characteristics. The remainder of the document discusses techniques for counting and sizing headlines, including the headline order, schedule, and principles of balance and proportion for headlines.

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Wilbert Olasiman
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33 views4 pages

COPYREADING

NEX gift certificates are described as a great holiday gift idea. The document then discusses various headline styles including banner headlines, crossline headlines, and flush left headlines. It provides examples of these different headline forms and their characteristics. The remainder of the document discusses techniques for counting and sizing headlines, including the headline order, schedule, and principles of balance and proportion for headlines.

Uploaded by

Wilbert Olasiman
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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NEX gift certificates

great holiday gift idea FLUSH LEFT (THE MOST COMMONLY USED HEAD TODAY)

CROSSLINE HEAD The crossline head is very similar to a banner headline. Although it does not
always span the full width of the page, it does cover all the columns of the story to which it pertains

Counting headlines
In most newsrooms, headlines are now counted using computer applications such as
QuarkXPress and Adobe InDesign. A few newsrooms still count headlines manually, however,
and many journalism programs teach headline counting. The traditional skills are worth
developing because they help new editors conceive and plan headlines. And, of course, they are a
reliable fallback in an emergency.
Each line of a headline must fit into the space provided. Hed writers make sure of that fit
by determining the count, or length in units, of each line. It would be a simple matter to just
count the letters, but that doesn’t quite work because some letters and figures are wider than
others.
Each letter and mark gets a specific value, also called a count. Widths of individual letters
vary a bit from one typeface to another, but the values in this chart are accurate for most families
of type. You should familiarize yourself with them:

Width: Letters, figures, marks

1/2 unit Lowercase f, i, j, 1, t


Capital I and numerical figure 1
All punctuation except question marks and dashes

1 unit All other lowercase letters except m and w


All other numerical figures
Question marks and spaces between words

1 1/2 units Lowercase m and w


All capitals except I, M and W
Dashes and symbols such as $, % and &

2 units Capitals M and W

The headline order


The request for a headline of a given size is called a headline order. It is a three-number sequence
that tells you how many columns your headline should cover, what point size it should be, and
how many lines it should fill. For example, a 6-42-1 is a comfortable banner head that stretches
across the page: six columns’ wide, 42-point type, one line. Headline writers love them because
they are wide-open spaces with no breaks between lines to complicate matters.
A 1-24-3, on the other hand, may be frustrating because it provides such a narrow space;
it asks you to write a one-column head in 24-point type over three lines.
The three numbers in a headline order are always given in the same sequence: width in
columns, type size in points, number of lines. The headline order may also specify a particular
font, if the publication uses more than one font for heads, and it may specify other variations
such as bold or italic type.

The headline schedule


The schedule is a simple but essential chart that allows you to translate a headline order into a
specific count. It tells you how many counts of a given point size you can fit into a given column
width. If you are learning to count heads the traditional way, it’s wise to keep a copy of the
headline schedule handy. Editors who count regularly find that they soon know the counts of the
most common headline orders by memory.
You will notice that some counts on the headline schedule below are blank. There is no
count, for example, for an 18-point head of more than two columns or a 72-point head of less
than three columns. Many such counts are not used because they would be terribly difficult to
write. (Try your hand, for instance, at a 1-72-3, with about three counts per column.)
Such headlines also would lack proportion. An 18-point head stretched across multiple
columns of type would appear puny, barely distinguishable from the text below it. A 72-point
head perched on a one- or two-column story—if it could be written at all—would appear top-
heavy.
This headline schedule refers to standard-width typefaces on 12.2- to 12.5-pica
broadsheet columns, as used in most newspapers.

Size 1 col. 2 col. 3 col. 4 col. 5 col. 6 col.

18 pt. 16 33
24 pt. 13 27 40
30 pt. 10.5 21.5 32 43
36 pt. 9 18.5 28 38 47.5
42 pt. 7.5 15.5 23.5 32 40 48
48 pt. 13.5 20.5 28 35 42.5
54 pt. 12 18 24.5 30.5 37
60 pt. 16 21.5 27.5 33
72 pt. 14 18.5 23 28

A second principle of balance and proportion: shorter heds have more lines, longer heds
fewer lines. Huge headlines on small stories and small headlines on big stories confuse both the
eye and the brain.
Editors work from flexible but reliable guidelines about how width (the number of
columns) and depth (the number of lines) should be proportioned so that headlines have enough
space to be intelligible, but don’t take up so much space that they overwhelm the stories beneath:

1-column hed: 3 or 4 1ines


2-column hed: 2 or 3 lines
3-column hed: 1 or 2 lines
4- to 6-column hed: 1 line
Figure 9-2.—Banner head. Figure 9-3.—Crossline head. HEADLINE FORMS LEARNING
OBJECTIVE: Identify the most common headline forms. Headline forms constantly come and
go. Regardless of the form, the most common headlines are easy to read, easy to write and easy to set.
Some of the most common headline forms are explained in the following text. BANNER HEAD The
banner head (fig. 9-2) is set the frill-page width at the top of a news page to draw attention to the lead
story or that particular page. If you run a banner head above the flag or nameplate, it is called a
skyline. A streamer applies to the widest and biggest multicolumn head on a page, regardless of
whether it is the full width. CROSSLINE HEAD The crossline head (fig. 9-3) is very similar to a
banner headline. Although it does not always span the full width of the page, it does cover all the
columns of the story to which it pertains. FLUSH LEFT HEAD The flush left head (fig. 9-4) is a two-
or three-line head with each line set flush left. The lines do not have to

Figure 9-2.—Banner head. Figure 9-3.—Crossline head. HEADLINE FORMS LEARNING


OBJECTIVE: Identify the most common headline forms. Headline forms constantly come and
go. Regardless of the form, the most common headlines are easy to read, easy to write and easy to set.
Some of the most common headline forms are explained in the following text. BANNER HEAD The
banner head (fig. 9-2) is set the frill-page width at the top of a news page to draw attention to the lead
story or that particular page. If you run a banner head above the flag or nameplate, it is called a
skyline. A streamer applies to the widest and biggest multicolumn head on a page, regardless of
whether it is the full width. CROSSLINE HEAD The crossline head (fig. 9-3) is very similar to a
banner headline. Although it does not always span the full width of the page, it does cover all the
columns of the story to which it pertains. FLUSH LEFT HEAD The flush left head (fig. 9-4) is a two-
or three-line head with each line set flush left. The lines do not have to

Local pilot had unique role in Desert Storm - Banner head

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