Black September

The Wall Street Journal abandoned its restrained front page design just in time. The staid business newspaper has captured the month's growing financial alarm—and contributed to it—with dramatic headlines often stretching across all six columns of the front page. The growing point size of the headlines is a graphic measure of the gathering crisis. The first splash headline came on Monday 15th September as Lehman Brothers teetered. Since then, the Journal has given the panic treatment to eight more front pages, most recently in today's dire summary of the news: Bailout Plan Rejected, Markets Plunge, Forcing New Scramble to Solve Crisis. The month (and the Jewish year) is over. But it's not the last time newspapers will break out the big fonts. Click for high-definition version of the collage.