Headlines and decks

[Riddick]

if everyone's heck is different, mine will be writing one-column headlines

speaking of heck, i been having nightmares about trying to make the agate page work and get it out on deadline. is that weird?

 

[BTExpress]

Depends on point size of the decks, too.

Our deck size is 24-point. That's a little large to say anything in just two lines. It also tends to look a little too big under any main head less than 48-point.

 

[HejiraHenry]

if everyone's heck is different, mine will be writing one-column headlines

speaking of heck, i been having nightmares about trying to make the agate page work and get it out on deadline. is that weird?

No, that's normal.

Do you dream that you'rre doing the agate page nude? That would be weird.

 

[Football_Bat]

We use nut grafs instead of subheads; my limit on those is 3 decks.

 

[fishwrapper]

Depends on point size of the decks, too.

Our deck size is 24-point. That's a little large to say anything in just two lines. It also tends to look a little too big under any main head less than 48-point.

This is the key when dealing with subs. The general rule should be 1/2 the size of the main hed. I think it is a major mistake to have a 24pt sub with a 36pt main. Too much weight. And to have a blanket rule on the sizes of subs is to paint the designer and copy editor into at 12p corner.

 

[alleyallen]

Our paper puts deckheads on virtually everything. I could count on both hands the number of times I've had a story with no subhead in the two-plus years I've been working here. And they're all (well, 90 percent) 1-column, 3-deck subheads.

Same here from my last paper. We had a rail which took up one full column on the left. When you always have that anchor, you have to be a bit more flexible in your layout styles. Subheads or decks allow you to do that. They're not always the best tool, but I preferred to have as many layout options as possible.

 

[North61]

My ME recently had a one column 11 deck hed on the front page- 6 main and 5 subhed. It was the forking dumbest thing I've ever seen. The story jumped three paragraphs in and if I remember right, it was some snoozer piece about water pipe maintenance. I need to find a new job.

 

[MacDaddy]

if everyone's heck is different, mine will be writing one-column headlines

About Marty Schottenheimer.

 

[shotglass]

My ME recently had a one column 11 deck hed on the front page- 6 main and 5 subhed. It was the forking dumbest thing I've ever seen. The story jumped three paragraphs in and if I remember right, it was some snoozer piece about water pipe maintenance. I need to find a new job.

Yeah, that's pretty bad...

 

[subhead]

I was against it until I noticed The NYT does it that way. Now I'm for it.

 

[Sxysprtswrtr]

if everyone's heck is different, mine will be writing one-column headlines

About Marty Schottenheimer.

That or Sarunas Jasikevicius
--
We use 2 or 3 subdecks .. no more, no less.

 

[joe]

And how the fork does a "new, young designer" get to set the rules for headline specs? Tell him he ain't at College U anymore, and that ain't the forking way it's done here. Change it.