Northline Style Guide
Every issue of Northline is built from the same small set of parts: headings, paragraphs, images, quotes and the occasional table. This page shows each of them in use, on real editorial copy, so you can see how the theme handles them in Light and Dark and on any screen width. If you publish with Ghost, everything below is a standard editor card. Nothing here is custom.
Headings set the pace
We use one first-level heading per page, the title, and then work down from there. Second-level headings mark the turns in an argument. Third-level headings are rare and usually signal a list of examples or a sidebar. Anything deeper than that is a sign the piece wants to be two pieces. You can browse how this plays out across the archive on the Topics page, or read the Ghost editor documentation if you are new to cards.
What a third-level heading looks like
Body text in Northline is set for long reading: a measured line length, a comfortable leading, and links that are visible without shouting. Emphasis is kept to italics for titles and stress, and bold only when a term is being introduced for the first time.
Lists, for when prose slows down
Most of our reporting on modern work keeps coming back to the same three tensions. We list them here because a list is faster than three paragraphs:
- Autonomy asks more of managers, not less. Teams that set their own hours still need someone to hold the shape of the work.
- Written agreements outlast good intentions. A ten-person remote team that rebuilds its working agreements every year loses fewer people than one that relies on memory.
- Trust is built in the open. Working well with people you will never meet depends on decisions being visible, not on chemistry.
When we run a four-day-week story, the reporting follows a fixed order, so the reader can compare one company with the next:
- What was actually cut: hours, meetings, scope or headcount.
- How the team measured the change, and over what period.
- What happened to pay, and who decided.
- What the company would do differently if it started again.
Quotes and callouts
The four-day week did not give us a day back. It gave us the argument about what deserved a day in the first place.
A blockquote is for a voice other than ours. A callout is for our own voice stepping out of the flow for a moment: a definition, a note on method, a warning. Northline styles the two differently on purpose.
Images, galleries and credits
A single wide image carries a story. Three images in a gallery describe a situation from more than one side, and the gallery card keeps them at the same height without any cropping decisions from the writer.
Three ways of working that Northline reported on this year: the four-day week, autonomy as a management task, and teams that never share a room. Photos: Northline archive.
Bookmarks and embeds
When we point readers elsewhere, we prefer a bookmark card over a bare link. It shows the title and a line of context, so nobody has to click to find out whether it is worth their time.
Video and audio are embedded, never self-hosted. A hosted player is more reliable than anything we could run ourselves, and it means the page loads fast even with a full story above it.
Toggles, code and tables
Some things belong on the page without belonging in the flow. Toggles hold the methodology, the reading list, the part of the interview that only three people want. Code blocks and tables hold exactly what they say.
How we choose companies to profile
We look for teams that have run a way of working for at least a year, that are willing to share numbers, and that have made at least one decision they now regret. Companies that only want to talk about the good parts are welcome to advertise.
Corrections and updates
Factual corrections are made in place and noted at the foot of the piece. Significant updates get a dated paragraph at the top. We do not silently rewrite.
Northline is a Ghost theme, so the code we show is usually Handlebars. This is the query that builds the Topics directory, limited to public tags:
{{#get "tags" filter="visibility:public+slug:-edition-*" limit="all" order="name asc"}}
{{#foreach tags}}
<a href="{{url}}">{{name}} <span>{{count.posts}}</span></a>
{{/foreach}}
{{/get}}
Every Northline article is one of five treatments. The table below is the whole system; the theme does the rest.
| Treatment | Used for | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Feature | Long reported pieces with a clear argument | The Economics of Small Magazines |
| Essay | A single voice, a single idea | Paywalls Change More Than Revenue |
| Case Study | One company, one decision, the numbers | Redesigning a Publisher's Visual Identity |
| Field Note | Short, observed, first person | The Grid Remembers |
| Visual Story | Led by photography, text in support | Inside the Offices Designed to Look Like Nobody Works There |
Questions
If you are evaluating Northline for your own publication and want to know how a particular card or layout behaves, the Contact page is the place to ask. We answer in the order questions arrive.