Having Your Hed Examined

Originally published within "Under the Covers," from Signature Magazine, 11/23/20

Pop quiz, you publishing expert: Why is it called a “headline?”

If you don’t know the answer, don’t feel bad. It’s not an exciting tale: Pre-19th century printers referred to the top of a page as its “head.” The “line” component originally referred to what we now would call the “folio,” which was usually found at the “head” of the page (versus any notes, which would be found at the bottom, or “foot” of the page; I think you can see where this is going). As the newspaper wars heated up toward the end of the 19th century, publishers appropriated the term to describe the short and punchy titles given to multiple articles, all jockeying for attention on overstuffed front pages.

The new prose styles of these headlines, often eschewing definite articles or using colorful abbreviations in place of familiar terms, demanded the creation of a new hierarchy of information. After the “hed” (to use a deliberate misspelling that was created as an instruction to pressmen from their editors), we would now find a “deck.” The etymology of “deck” is less settled; it might tell us that the information was intentionally stacked, like a deck of cards, or it might be a truncated version of “deckhead,” about which the less said, the better. In any case, the “hed” is meant to draw your attention; the “dek” succinctly describes the content of the article.

So much for remedial publishing. But it’s worth reminding ourselves of these origin stories from time to time because the pace of modern publishing sometimes causes us to overlook the legitimate reasons that we assemble content the way we do. The hed/dek custom has a specific purpose, even if fewer and fewer people experience the format in its original source — newspapers. In magazines, it’s still (or should be) the dominant article structure.

But here’s the real pop question, for which there can be no right answer: Which comes first — the headline or the image that accompanies it?

Editors and designers will each have their own response and, if history is any guide, neither group will refrain from complaining about how wrong the contrary faction is. Speaking as a designer who likes to write (though I’ll never be known as a writer who designs), the answer is gray. It’s usually easier for me to illustrate a good headline, but sometimes, the wording just doesn’t come into focus until the image is ready.

This is relevant to this issue’s cover (and cover story layout) in that the process happened both ways. My search started with a headline, but then the image suggested a new one.

One of my reflexive habits as a designer is to approach content from the opposite direction of its premise. In this case, our cover story discusses the importance of marrying the right content with the right audience, as well as striking a balance among segments of that right audience. Rather than illustrate the successful connection between association and audience, I started out by illustrating the converse: an association that didn’t bother to try.

For 40 years, the fast food chain Burger King’s slogan was “Have It Your Way,” finally abandoned in favor of the anodyne “Be Your Way” — whatever that means — in 2014. I have a weakness for headlines that swap out one letter of a well known phrase to completely change its meaning. And so was born “Have It Our Way,” the operating principle of an association that isn’t concerned about tailoring content to its members.

Here’s the trouble: That headline only works as part of the image. Look back at the cover. Now cover up the slogan on the Café sign. It’s just another failed gas station/eatery in the middle of nowhere (honestly, did this place look any better the day it was built?). The fact that it went out of business exclusively because it failed to honor diner requests is lost.

Not wishing to use the same headline twice within the same image, I needed some new language. I spent a long time looking at the deserted diner. Did it have a name once, the letters having long since fallen off the sign, leaving only the blunt descriptor “Café?” Or was it always just “Café,” the singular dining destination in a town I imagined was named something clipped and resonant, like “Tuff Flats” or “Sad Canyon,” or something? Of such futile meditations are magazine columns extended beyond their useful purpose.

Without first realizing it, I was riffing on Welcome to Hard Times, the novel by E.L. Doctorow which told the story of a town named, yes, “Hard Times.” The die was cast; my abandoned café suddenly had a name worthy of itself. Two headlines for the price of one. If that’s not tailoring the content to suit the audience, I don’t know what is.

As customary, I executed multiple iterations of this basic idea of putting the wrong content in front of the wrong audience, two examples of which you’ll see on this page. In retrospect, that probably should have been a stripper instead of an Elvis impersonator on stage at the Met, but who knows? Post-COVID opera houses are sure to need every gimmick in the business to lure back their patrons.

“Have It Our Way” didn’t go down without a fight, though. After I’d finished playing musical pictures with the opening spread of the cover story (page XX), in which every supporting image in the article had its moment in the front slot, the slogan came back to life. The waitress didn’t really look like a resident of Hard Times.

The editors of The New York Daily News may say different, but writing a good headline is not easy, nor should it be. Just like marrying content with its best audience, it’s a balancing act. In only a few short words (and yes, editors, they should be short), one has to generate interest, respect the story about to be told and also correctly gauge the temperament of one’s readers, all of which, ideally, would be paired with an image that reveals a new layer of the topic at hand.

So the next time the temptation arises to call the article “New Initiative Sparks Interest,” maybe ask yourself that hallowed question: WWWRHD (What Would William Randolph Hearst Do)? It might be something horrible but I’m positive it won’t be boring.