# Leads-in *The .lead class, between typography and hook* Source: Long before screens, medieval scribes already marked the opening of a text: the incipit, written in red ink, announced the subject before the eye committed to the page. That ink gave its name to the *rubric*, from the Latin *rubrica*, red ochre. The lead-in is its heir: a reading step between a commanding title and denser running text. The press gave it its modern form. In the nineteenth century, with the telegraph dispatch, the inverted pyramid spread: the essentials first, who, what, where, when, why, gathered in the opening lines. It is the American journalists’ *lead*, the British *standfirst*, the *chapô* of French newsrooms. Set a little larger than the text but in a lighter weight, it is read at a glance, anchors the eye, lets the page breathe and bridges the title and the body without smothering it. Advertising turned it into a hook. David Ogilvy observed that five times as many people read the headline as the body copy: the headline draws the reader in, the lead-in must hold them. It states the promise and answers the reader’s problem. Joseph Sugarman spoke of a “slippery slide”: each sentence makes you want to read the next, down to the bottom of the page or to the call to action. The word comes full circle: in marketing, a *lead* is also a prospect. Placed right above a form or a download, the lead-in brings the final argument that turns a visitor into a contact.