Broadsheet
Newsprint set for the web: near-black serif on paper white, the process inks arriving through the print treatments — plates, registration marks and spot color.
Contents
Principles
Working rules
- Sections separate with whitespace, never with rules or boxes.
- Everything is set in the serif — size, weight and measure organise the page.
- Cyan marks the interactive; magenta is the rarer second spot color.
Two columns
The measure holds
Two columns set like a broadsheet page: justified body copy with automatic hyphenation, each column keeping its own flush-left axis. The gap between them is grid whitespace — no rule divides the columns, because the measure and the gutter do the organising.
One rhythm, both sides
Both columns top-align on the same gridline and share the baseline rhythm, so a line in one column always has a partner across the gutter. Wrapped lines stay flush; the last line of a paragraph stays ragged, as the press would leave it.
Three columns
Report
Three columns narrow the measure to a news-brief width; the justified setting keeps each column a clean slab of text.
Analysis
Heads take the serif at body size — the deck has no kicker row, so weight and scale do the labelling work.
Comment
Keep copy short at this measure: a brief runs a few lines, and the whitespace beneath ragged column ends is part of the page.
Quadrants
Run today
High urgency, low effort — set them and print them before the edition closes.
Hold front page
High urgency, high effort — the stories worth the whole desk’s attention.
Spike
Low urgency, low effort — the pressroom’s polite word for the waste basket.
File for later
Low urgency, high effort — long reads that earn their column inches over weeks.
The ramps
Color roles
| Role | Value | On the ground | Use | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Text | #201e1d | 14.9:1 | Body copy and headings | |
| Accent | #0088b0 | 3.7:1 | Spot color, chrome and large text | |
| Accent 700 | #006786 | 5.7:1 | Accent-colored body copy | |
| Surface | #eae9e9 | 1.1:1 | Cards and raised fills |
Body text against the paper ground — newsprint contrast is carried by ink, and color arrives through the process plates.
Contrast by ramp step
WCAG contrast of each accent-ramp step against the ground (#f3f2f2) — on a light ground the deep steps carry the contrast, and the dashed line marks the 3:1 interface minimum.
Weekly sessions
Sample data, in thousands — series separate as ink against spot color: the cyan line is the one accent in the figure, the second series stays ink and dashes.
Imagery
The four process plates
Every photograph prints as its own separation — cyan, magenta, yellow and black plates a few pixels out of register, with the dot screen tying the print together.
Full bleed
One photograph, edge to edge — the scrim is the paper token rising from the foot, so headline-grade type keeps its contrast without leaving the palette.
Half bleed
- The photograph bleeds to three edges and holds half the stage
- The copy keeps the content rhythm — same gridlines as every slide
- Bullets still hang left of the text, whatever sits behind them
Mirrored
The flip class changes the photograph’s side and the copy returns to the text axis — one pattern, both directions.
The plates, in color
The same four separations on a color original — each plate now carries the subject’s own ink densities, and the misregistration fringes print as the inks themselves rather than as gray.
Pulled apart
The same print with its plates pulled out of register, as on the light table — each ink shows itself before the press comes true. Hover the print to pull it back into register.
“Hierarchy comes from the serif scale and from negative space alone.”
Roadmap
The year, by milestone
Each milestone keeps one left edge — type and node aligned — with the spacing opening gently downward from date to note, and the current step in the accent.
Thank you
Copy this folder for your next deck — the tokens and markup patterns carry the look.