Hook’em with the headline

Headlines with clever wordplay and graphic treatment will draw readers into your stories. This example of a simple headline treatment appeared over a story on how the girls tennis team struggled after key players graduated at Thousand Oaks High School in Thousand Oaks, Calif.

Lancer Legend editors-in-chief Rebecca Llewellyn and Alexandra King played off of the word “shoes.” They cropped a graphic of sneakers and put it over the double l’s. Per adviser Robert Haar’s suggestion they made the word “Big,” well, big. The maroon color was taken from the tennis court.

The headline font for the book was Euphemia, a sans serif font. Since that font doesn’t have a large family, the staff got creative with headlines, making text larger or smaller, never bold, Llewellyn said. Also, she said each word had its own text box so it could be moved freely.

1. For this example, create a text box with the word “Big,” a second text box with the words “shoes to” 
and a third text box for the word “fill.” We used the 
font Calibri.

2. Change the size of “Big” to 295 pt. (approx. 2.5 inches in height), “shoes to” to 62 pt. (.375 inches) 
and “fill” to 195 pt. (2 inches). If you like, you can 
change the kerning of the letters in each text box, another reason separate text boxes are helpful!

3. Change the color of the “Big” letters to the 
Formula Color you have selected. For this 
example, use F2800. Change “shoes to” and “fill” to F6200.

4. Move the individual text boxes into their 
headline position.

5. For the shoe graphic, make sure the file has a 
transparent background, such as a .psd or .png file. 
Place the graphic into the spread. Duplicate and 
flip the file horizontally to place both of the l’s in “fill.”