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Because it is laid out in columns, this site doesn't display properly on a phone held vertically.
Please turn it sideways.
A form of layering – the whole story at a glance.
A form of layering – the whole story at a glance.
The multi-deck headings found in nineteenth-century newspapers give you the essence of the story at a glance. You might think you now don’t need to buy the newspaper, but actually it makes you curious and builds your appetite for detail.
Newspaper technology and design advanced during the civil war in the USA, when news would arrive in small chunks by telegraph.1 The full story would arrive later, but readers could be kept up to date through multi-deck headlines.
Incidentally, most design teachers advise against using too many typefaces, but I reckon it’s OK here. Each speaks with its own voice, clamouring for your attention. These days we might use a set of identical dull bullet points.
It’s the opposite in some online news today, where we are teased by headings that withhold the main point: “Hollywood star slams her ex”. Which star? What happened? You have to read on past the ads to find out.
1. Wiener JH. British and American Newspaper Journalism in the Nineteenth Century. In: Shattock J, ed. Journalism and the Periodical Press in Nineteenth-Century Britain. Cambridge University Press; 2017:263-280.