Designers often write each headline’s code above the story it belongs
with on the dummy. The person responsible for writing the headline—
either the copy editor or the designer—then consults a chart showing
how many letters will fit each column in various type sizes. This sounds
complicated, but it simply means that different letters take up different
amounts of space.
Publishing software makes it possible to adjust each headline to fit,
but only at the expense of type consistency. If a headline written in 30-
point type won’t fit, for example, the designer can shrink the headline to
28 points with a single keystroke. But many designers prefer to work in
regular increments of 18, 24, 36 and 48 points. If they stick to their plan,
it is the writer and not the software that makes the adjustment. For that
reason, it’s a good idea to at least understand why some headlines take
more space than others.
Wide letters, such as M and W, take up more room than do skinny
letters, such as I and J. Headline writers take these differences into
account in calculating how much space a headline will take up by using
a headline count chart. Most professional count charts are now digital
and measure the width of letters to tenths or even hundredths of units.
However, here’s a simpler method you can use quite efficiently to deter-
mine a headline’s length:- Count all lowercase letters as one unit, except for five slen-
der ones, f, l, i, t and j (think “flit-jay” as a memory device)
and two wide ones, m and w. Count the slender letters as
0.5 units and the wide ones as 1.5 units. - Count all uppercase letters as 1.5 units except for two slen-
der ones, I and J (count these as one unit) and two wide
ones, M and W (count these as two units). - Count punctuation marks as 0.5 units except for the ques-
tion mark, double quotation mark and dash (count each
as one unit). - Count each space as one unit.
- Count all numbers as one unit except for the number 1
(count it as 0.5 units).
If the headline count chart says you can fit 30 units in a 3-36-1 head-
line, then the following 29.5-unit headline would work:
However, this 35-unit headline would not fit:Scientists find Western town on Venus
Ideally, the copy editor creates headlines for your publication. But if
you, as designer, have the job of writing headlines, you’re now prepared
to do it.(^366) PRODUCING THE NEWS
Wild West town found on Venus
OutTake
Dingbats and Bullets
Not for monks only. That’s
what you’ll be thinking once you
have a taste of the fascinating
decorative ornaments available
in some special typefaces.
In the days of old, the scribes
who toiled over their parchment
with pen and brush were basi-
cally copying words. But they
didn’t stop there. They also illumi-
nated their pages with decorative
letters, scrolls and borders. A
manuscript became a work of art.
Today, many of those same
decorations are being used to
make text look more visually
interesting. Dingbats are those
little pictures and symbols used
to break up otherwise dreary
copy. You can find some of these
decorations in a typeface called
Zapf Dingbats. Here, for example,
are some of those characters:
uVMUS\x
Try using dingbats as bul-
lets, to separate paragraphs, or
as borders to take up space.