Above the fold

Above the fold is graphic designer Stephen Sheehan’s personal typographic exploration of bias and neutrality in the news. Typefaces and format are chosen for their historical and cultural connotations. The folded newsprint poster with oversized headlines evokes an obese, almost comically overstuffed newspaper. The texts are taken exclusively from right-wing news media Breitbart.

Body and leads are typeset in Nina Stössinger’s Nordvest and David Jonathan Ross’ Trilby respectively – two quite different takes on the eye-catching reversed stress of ephemeral 19th century advertising typography. On the reverse, Nordvest is enlarged to bizarre proportions. Obviously, another advert-spawned design by James Edmonson, navigates the extremes of 20th century vinyl signage. This distorted outlook is accentuated by drop caps from Petr van Blokland’s PowerLift, and augmented by the fine print bylines revealing author, origin and original publication date of the content. The latter is typeset in a supposedly “neutral” neo-grotesk: Suisse Int’l from Swiss Typefaces.