Every headline starts on paper

Felix keeps a jar of sharpened pencils on the long table by the window, and every headline we write starts there. Not in a document or a deck: on the back of a proof, with the picture taped above it.

It looks slow. It’s the quickest way we know to find out whether a line works.

A headline is read from a distance

Most of our words end up small and far away: a label on a shelf, a sign over a door, the first screen of a site glanced at on a tram. Writing them a foot from a monitor hides that.

So we write them large, pin them up and step back. If a line needs a second read from three metres, it goes.

Ten lines before we choose one

We never write one headline. We write ten, quickly, without crossing anything out, and only then start choosing. Each round tends to hold the same four kinds:

• The plain one. It says what the thing is.

• The clever one. Usually too pleased with itself.

• The short one. Three words or fewer.

• The one a customer would say. Overheard rather than written.

The fourth kind wins more often than it should. Bar staff were already calling Corvo Tonic “the black one”, and that’s the line that went on the poster.

Paper keeps the bad ideas

A document deletes. A pencil crosses out, and the crossed-out line stays readable underneath. Half our best headlines are the second half of something we struck through the week before.

Paper also stops us polishing too early. A line written in pencil looks unfinished, so nobody falls in love with it before it’s earned it.

We test that literally: cover the picture with a hand and read the line on its own. If the meaning goes with the picture, we start the ten again.

Try it on your next launch

You don’t need our jar of pencils. A wall, some tape and ten minutes will do.

1. Write ten versions of the line, fast, without judging any.

2. Copy them out large, one to a sheet.

3. Pin them up and read them from across the room.

4. Keep the one you understood first, not the one you liked most.

The winner is rarely the cleverest. It’s the one your customers could repeat back to you after one look. If you’d like a second pair of eyes on yours, write to us.