mario garcia
Summaries Headlines and photos are our most effective tools to grab the attention of readers. However, designers and editors know that summaries—four or five line paragraphs that appear between the headline and the first line of text—can also be good hooks to pull readers in. Popular with magazines, summaries have made a great entrance into newspapers and other printed matter. The well-written ones do not repeat what the headline says; instead, they flesh out the story, to give scanners an idea of what the story is about. Typographically, summaries should be set in a minimum of 12 points, and should offer contrast to the headline. A very light headline, might use a bold summary, and vice versa. Avoid using very long summaries. One-column summaries should not exceed 8-10 lines. If spread over two columns, summaries should be a maximum of six lines. Summaries should not appear as an impassable block of text. Instead, they are extensions of the headline, another point of entry to interest the reader.
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pure design
Taking the headline further: For “scanners”, summaries may be all of the story they take with them. Santiago’s El Mercurio uses summaries intelligently, in a style that never exceeds 8-10 lines of text.
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