Question headline

The pattern

This still is filed under Question headline.

Define

The first line is a question the reader was already asking, or one they cannot leave unanswered.

Mechanism

Open loop plus recognition. A good question is the reader's objection, spoken first by us.

Verdict

We know the real objection and can answer it in the next breath.

Why it works

The punctuation is promoted to the illustration, so the poster has a picture without needing a subject - the question mark is both the image and the argument. Running every line on one diagonal turns a list of dry particulars into a single movement, which is what keeps five speaker names from reading as an index card. The headline is a question the target audience has already asked itself, so recognition does the stopping work, and the answer is deliberately withheld to the event. The WPA roundel and the black foot band act as a fixed identity system across the series while the artwork above it changes.

The big idea

Whether the working artist will survive is posed as an open question, to be argued in public by a named panel on one evening, free.

The offer

Free admission to a public forum at the Daly Theatre, 22 West 63 St., Nov. 22 at 8:45 P.M.

The proof

A named panel: Holger Cahill, Dr. Erwin Edman, Elinore M. Herrick, J.B. Neumann, with Dr. Wm. Nunn as chairman.

Lines from the ad

SHALL THE ARTIST SURVIVE

DALY THEATRE 22 WEST 63 ST.

ADMISSION FREE

Steal this when

Use this when the subject is a debate rather than a product and the only honest promise is that the question will be argued in public. It is also the model to copy when a piece must carry a lot of names and details but has no imagery to work with.

The emotion

Written to Curiosity. It does neither clearly.

It poses 'Shall the artist survive?' and names the panel, the hall and free admission, but closes no part of the question; the whole answer is held for the evening's debate.