mario garcia
Centered vs. ush left headlines Centered headlines dominated newspapers for decades, until, in the 1970s, more experimental newspapers began experimenting with flush-left headlines. Suddenly, newspapers would use the left-hand side of the page to align not only headlines, but also other elements like bylines, summary paragraphs, quotes and captions under photographs. One of the first newspapers to do this was the now defunct Chicago Daily News. The style was also adopted by the Minneapolis Tribune when, in 1971, it also switched to an all-Helvetica approach. Since then, newspapers have opted mostly for flush left-headlines, especially in the United States, where centered heads are rare in any newspaper today. However, a quick trip across the Atlantic, and one finds the classic Times of London, continuing to use centered heads, as do many other European newspapers, as well as dailies in Asia and South America. Any comment about one style of headline alignment versus the other would be based only on personal preference. However, how one aligns headlines does have an overall effect on the look of the page. 
Centered headlines give a page a more classic and traditional look; flush left headlines are more modern, and invite more white space onto the page. 60
pure design
Flush-left headlines must be followed by a flush-left alignment for all other elements that follow it, while centered heads can very well be accompanied by bylines and other elements that are aligned to the left. Tabloids fare much better with flush-left headlines, while broadsheets can use either style. Consistency is important: keep either all heads centered, or all heads flushed left. However, some papers with centered headlines, such as The Times of London, do offer a bit of contrast by making the headlines for briefs flush left. This is better when there is also a switch of type font.
After all this, we are reminded that the wording of the headline, the message transmitted, the hook to get the reader to read the text is, at the end of the day, far more important than how one aligns the type.
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mario garcia
Elegant and easy to read: When Ron Reason first sketched pages for our redesign of the Staten Island Advance, he never imagined headlines in any other way than centered. It was a way of lending elegance to a newspaper with a rich community tradition. Centered headlines also allow for good headline counts, which writers appreciate.
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pure design
Perfectly aligned heads: The Daily Star of Lebanon, designed by our Jan Kny, employs flush-left headlines, which became popular in the 1970s. They help organize the page, with perfect alignment of elements that emphasizes a better use of modular layout. They also accommodate perfectly square modules much better than they do centered ones.
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