his attack according to events; but an advertisement, once it is set up in cold type, has no "come back." It must stake all upon its one appeal. It must not only "crack the shop" but in the same breath it must land the order, or at least interest the prospect to a point where he will take definite action.

A properly designed advertisement should lead the reader through four logical stepsattention, interest, desire and action. And the shop is cracked by the first two.

Unless the reader of the advertising pages of any publication is turning them over for the definite purpose of seeking some particular thing the chances are that he carries a chip on his shoulder. Probably if you backed him into a corner and asked him this he would deny it. No doubt he would affirm that his object in turning over the advertising pages was largely one of more or less idle curiosity, mingled with a desire to pass the time and be amused. Perhaps he would go even further and tell you, with perfect truth, that he found the advertising pages instructive and interesting; yet even to himself he might not acknowledge that his attitude had a certain hostile trend. As a mater of fact the chances are that he does not realize this. If this attitude exists he is likely unconscious of it. Certain advertisements attract him; hold his interest Others repel, make no impression.

A salesman can gauge his man and vary his attack to suit the disposition of his prospect; but an advertisement, appealing to the masses must aim to strike the most logical method of breaking through the reserve of the great majority. And the strongest weapon of an adver tisement in any attempt to "crack the shop" is the headline.

The headline corresponds to the plan adopted by the subscription solicitor or the salesman for breaking down opposition, and the greatest care should be used in its selection.

A certain transit manufacturer, advertising to a specialized class of readers, recently used the following:

"I am going to place my transit in the hands of every user who demands the highest qual ity."

The logical effect of such a headline was to to "crack the shops" by making readers sit up and take notice. Like the salesman who secured his interview on the strength of his "fish story" this headline arouses a certain admiration for the nerve of the man behind it.

To the jaded mind of the reader who has been fed the usual arguments of "accuracy, workmanship and finish" this bold statement breaks through where a trite one would fail. "The dickens you are!" is the mental response. "You're not going to place your transit in my hands," and the awakened prospective buyer savagely clutches the paper and reads the advertisement through. Which is exactly what is desired.

Somewhat similar is the case of the manufacturer of a safety device who used the headline

"THEY SAID I WAS DEAD"

Following this appeared the picture of a man, the copy stating that after an accident the victim's life had been given up as lost. As a last resort the safety device had been brought into use with the result that oxygen had been forced into the lungs and the man brought around.

It was the headline, however, that got under the skin.

Many a good salesman fails to land an order for the simple reason that he cannot secure a hearing, and likewise many a strong advertisement, from a copy standpoint, fails to pull because it lacks the ability to "crack the shop."

The Pilgrim Publicity Association has moved into its new Publicity Building, Bromfield Street, Boston.

Don C. Seitz, business manager of the New York World, in a talk before the members of the Y. M. C. A. advertising class wherein he laid great emphasis upon writing the advertisement in the way best suited to the people you wish to reach, cited a case of a man who inserted an ad in a metropolitan newspaper one day. He received one reply, the very one that fitted the case, and a sale was effected.

A good deal could be said on this subject regarding lost motion, the economic value of advertising to just the class who can use your product, and the elimination of superb diction and magnificent typographical displays. Mr. Seitz says he "is out of patience with the elaborate adsmith. Tell your people who you are, where you are and what you've got to sell, and do it in simple, plain English," advises Mr. Seitz, "and you will have put into your copy the 'punch' necessary to interest and attract the prospective purchaser."

T

HE more advertising there is, the more advertising competition. And the more competitive advertising, the keener the search for new and unique treatment, typography and engraving stunts that are practical.

Probably that accounts, at least in part, for the present remarkable increase in the popularity of the coarse-screen halftone for newspaper advertising uses.

It is surprising what clever new effects are obtained from zinc etchings made from line drawings. But zincs are zincs and apt to be monotonous at best. With them, the infinite number of tone values is impossible and unknown, which the halftone obtains with relative ease. A zinc is either all black or all white and it knows not the intermediate greys.

Then, too, the making of zinc etchings is not the art it formerly was, which may also have something to do with the growing liking for the coarse screen halftone. Your engraver of the new school is more apt to look upon the making of zincs as an accommodation to you, at most, and a department of his business which he imagines he runs without profit.

He'll tell you he makes zincs for somewhat the same reason that your grocer carries sugar in stock, not making money on it when he sells it but keeping it chiefly because every grocer is expected to.

An article in a recent issue of the Graphic Arts, bearing upon this subject, is of considerable interest, from which the following is quoted:

"If you want a good job of line-engraving you will have to say so, for if you simply hand it out and say 'line-cut,' you receive a plate which will be characterized by deficiencies naturally resulting from cheap, unintelligent, and inefficient labor. You may be reasonably certain of this, that all the good line-engravings

you see today are especially ordered at a price, by one who knows what he wants and where he can get it, and that it is manufactured under different conditions than the other ninetynine per cent."

Whether the coarse halftone will ever rival the utility and popularity of zinc etchings for newspaper publicity is, of course, very questionable. Just how extensively it is going to be used will be interesting to note. But certainly its adherents are strikingly on the increase today.

Meanwhile there are several principles which should be carefully taken into account in the preparation of the halftone for use on wood pulp paper, which means the newspapers and most of the farm papers.

The Screen. Most important of all is the screen. To him who has been used to screens of one hundred and fifty lines and more for use on fine calendered magazine or booklet paper a hundred screen seems coarse. But the screen for the newspaper halftone should be sixty-five lines to the inch or coarser, if printable results are expected, although there are a few who can point to good results obtained with the eighty-five screen.

Even coarser screens than this are sometimes used. The writer has in mind a series of newspaper ads run by the Loose-Wiles Company on Sunshine Biscuits and illustrated by plates which approximated halftones of as low as twenty three lines to the inch. The result was more or less of a novelty, probably obtained by photographing a finer screened halftone proof microscopically, and looked more or less like the illustrations usually found in books on engraving, where a halftone has been enlarged in order to give the novice a better idea of screen structures and effects. However, this is not saying that the series did not have its merits from an advertising standpoint, because it did as a novelty.

But he was inexperienced and there was no one handy to offer advice. He had his plates made in one hundred and ten line screen! And the result was a catastrophe. When his ads actually appeared in the newspapers they looked more like maps of No Man's Land or a Black Hand Ultimatum than something intended to separate the gentle reader from his precious bank roll.

Bold Effects. But in several other matters than as regards the screen must the halftone for newspaper advertising be prepared differently than the halftone for magazine advertising, if the best effects and results are to be obtained. And one of these is the necessity for boldness and minimized detail.

There had been successful halftone newspaper advertisers before Pabst Beer came along, with its present lengthy campaign of that type. But probably no campaign has made it clearer than this one to those in the advertising world, who study carefully engraving results, that it is far better, if the coarse screen halftone is to be used, to show one person, rather than two or three, and to show that one "head-and-shoulders," rather than full length.

In other words, the larger the face the better it will print. Also the less detail, the clearer and more satisfactory the result.

And, when one comes to think of it, this is not so surprising, either, inasmuch as the sixty five line screen cuts up the shadows and details of a piece of copy barbarously.

Almost without exception, the Pabst campaign here referred to, which is still running, has shown one person at a time, "head-andshoulders" only. The layouts have been of the "all-over" type. That is the picture has been allowed to occupy the entire space and the few words of general publicity text have been overlaid against it, where the composition best permitted either in black or white.

But the Pabst halftone series, good as it is, is probably handicapped because of the fact

that it is worked up from photographs rather than from drawings; and the opportunities for bold effects and minimized detail are limited in proportion.

When photographs are used for this end it seems best that they should be retouched by hand in those parts where necessary, in order that the contrasts may be strong, more particularly on the faces.

The Gillette Safety Razor has been advertised in newspapers with halftones that are famous in this regard. And a study of the latter is well worth the time and trouble. It will show that the artist's copy from which these halftones are made was drawn with the ultimate results distinctly in mind from the start. Few details as to clothing are shown other than are absolutely necessary. And on the faces the highlights and shadows are so arranged that there is a minimum opportunity for confusion on the printed page.

An important fact which should be kept in mind, too, is the fact that the copy, more particularly on the faces, should be handed to the engraver a few shades darker than it is expected to ultimately print.

The writer knows of one Chicago newspaper advertiser who exclaimed, when the first drawing intended for a sizable series of coarsescreen halftone ads was delivered, "Why did you make the lady a mulatto?"

It was quickly explained to him why in the drawing the lady's face had to be considerably darker than it was expected it would print because the sixty-five screen would so cut up the tone of that face that it would be very materially lighter when printed.

When the matter was explained he understood it in a moment, but it was not a point that had occurred to him in advance at all.

Strengthening the Printing Surface. There is another matter which is purely mechanical and which the advertiser should not encounter if his engraver has his best interests at heart and is willing to offer a little advice when he sees it is needed.

It does not matter so very much with a fine screen halftone, printed carefully on fine paper, whether the edges of that screen are vignetted off unevenly or not. But it does matter a great deal whether the edges of that screen are un

even in this way when the screen is as coarse as sixty-five and the presses are as fast and mechanical as are used in newspaper plants and the paper is such an uncertain quality as newspaper stock always is.

The Gillette Safety Razor people, to whose advertising reference has already been made, have planned very carefully in order to avoid this difficulty by almost invariably supporting the outer surface of their halftones by means of a bold and broad rule, or its equivalent in strength in the case of a border of a decorative nature. This detail has proven very essential and has invariably resulted in preventing screens from wearing down in spots and become muddy and blurred.

Bendays in Combination. The advantages of using benday screens in combination with halftones for newspaper use, and more particularly upon the backgrounds, is obvious and very generally recognized. The result is that the contrast between the two types of engravings tends to throw out the halftone portions, thus making them more effective.

But the number of possible effects to be obtained by bendays in this way has only been hinted at.

There are not only the regular bendays but there are the combinations of two or even three bendays, as well as the "reversed" bendays made possible by applying the stipples to the negatives rather than to the plates, and the almost unlimited number of combinations of reversed bendays with straight bendays.

Large Space Essential. And a final extremely important consideration in the use of the halftone in newspaper advertising is the matter of space.

Halftones are inadvisable for small spaces. Indeed it is questionable whether they should be employed upon ads smaller than three columns in width by a proportionate depth.

Recently an excellent comparative opportunity was offered to judge of the short-comings of the halftone for small size spaces. Secretary of War Garrison recently rode upon the Pioneer Limited of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway and was photographed upon his arrival complimenting the train's dining car conductor upon the excellence of the serv ice.

Naturally that photograph offered splendid

material for a little advertising burst and it was used in an ad four columns in width. The result was disappointing.

Later the same piece of copy was done over into line by the silverprint method and run in a three column width ad and the result was infinitely better.

The experiment was instrumental in prejudicing S. D. Roberts, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul advertising agent, against the halftone for his advertising purposes more or less permanently.

Says Mr. Roberts: "The results we have obtained from coarse screen halftones for newspaper illustrations would not justify a continuation of their use. In the case of the Garrison ad mentioned (which was small copy), we found that the lines filled and blurred and that we could not get the same sharp details from the cut that it is possible to secure from a line engraving. The clear outlines in the Pabst Beer ads, I think, are attributable to the large space they devote to the halftoned subjects. If they were reduced much of their effectiveness would be destroyed."