Headline Writing 101

December 5th, 2004

Lesson #1: Don’t scare the hell out of your audience with a poor choice of words.

Like this entry? You can follow me on Twitter here, subscribe via email here, or get the RSS feed if that's how you roll.
|

7 Responses:

  1. Kyle says:

    That’s awesome. Just plain awesome.

    #1 - December 5th, 2004 at 9:55 pm
  2. Ryan Berg says:

    I read that headline earlier today, I thought, “Uh oh, what now?” After reading the blurb underneath, I just had to scratch my head and wonder who approved that choice of words for the headline.

    #2 - December 5th, 2004 at 10:53 pm
  3. Rod H says:

    On the bright side a headline like this should definitely bring some change. I would think.

    #3 - December 5th, 2004 at 11:49 pm
  4. Gabriel Mihalache says:

    You’re just giving away the fact that you haven’t been following the story ;-)

    #4 - December 6th, 2004 at 2:52 am
  5. Don says:

    Headlines should never assume anything … for instance here it assumes intellingence of a politician … which has been compromised for years probably. You all assumed it had something to do with the article below, but maybe it is a statement of fact?

    #5 - December 6th, 2004 at 5:10 am
  6. Jonathan Snook says:

    Headline writing is important in general… even in the blogosphere. How often do page titles come nowhere near to reflecting the actual content of the page; all in the name of some witty double entendre. In fact, I felt this article was going to be about headline writing. Alas, I was disappointed. Albeit a little amused. :)

    #6 - December 6th, 2004 at 6:03 am
  7. Doctor says:

    On the bright side a headline like this should definitely bring some change. I would think.

    #7 - December 10th, 2005 at 6:42 am

Leave a Reply:

Shared
Solitude and Leadership:

Multitasking, in short, is not only not thinking, it impairs your ability to think.Thinking means concentrating on one thing long enough to develop an idea about it. Not learning other people’s ideas, or memorizing a body of information…

Takes a little while to get going, but overall a great article about the virtues of seeking solitude from distractions in order to develop your own original thoughts.

“I think you’ve got a pretty good imagination, despicability-wise!”

“Look Around You - Computer Games”

Can’t believe I hadn’t heard of this BBC series before. Brilliant. Make sure to watch them all. (via daringfireball)

10 New Year’s resolutions for designers:

Do you think Chelsea Clinton asks herself if her mom would understand something complex? No. Because her mom is a badass.

How Doctors Die:

If there is a state of the art of end-of-life care, it is this: death with dignity.

This is the most concise, easily understood article on the perils of end-of-like care in the United States I’ve ever read. It is a must-read, and frankly, a must-heed, in my opinion. (via kottke)

Lost Type Co-op | Browse Fonts:

A nice collection of pay-what-you-will typefaces from Tyler Galpin and Riley Cran.
How to interview a designer with the perfect design exercise:

These sorts of tests are common for engineering hires, but it’s nice to see an example of a good design-oriented one.

Jessica Hische's Lovely Blog:

Embarrassed I had never seen this until today. Lovely work all around. (via drawar)

This recently unearthed video of Steve Jobs at work during the early days of NeXT is a remarkable look inside how he ran meetings, how he created culture at his startups, and how others — like Joanna Hoffman around the 11 minute mark — called B.S. on his reality distortion field. It’s also remarkable in that it reveals Jobs to be a man who picks carrots in pressed work shirts.

Paper Birds by Diana Beltran Herrera

View.js — A simple, lightweight, jQuery photo viewer for the web

The Republican Clown College by WMxdesign. These are so great. Make sure to check out the whole set.

BuiltWith: Web Technology Usage Statistics:

Sometimes when you are deciding on technologies to use on a new site (e.g. jQuery vs. YUI or MS SQL vs. MySQL) it’s instructive to examine what everyone else is doing. BuiltWith has an incredible amount of trending data to help you out in that regard. Very, very cool.

A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design:

Lots of good thinking here. No solutions, but a nice reminder that two-dimensional touch interfaces are transitional, not permanent.

Stephen Colbert loses it on-air. Rivals another one of my all-time favorite Colbert on air crack-ups.

View Shared Archives