Posts cover front page

A full-bleed core/cover set like the front of a newspaper: a heavy veil of your theme's contrast colour over one photograph, a masthead ruled across the top, the lead story in the lower left two thirds and a ruled column of three further stories on the right. Hand-written entries in core blocks, not a query loop, so it works on a static front page and every word is yours to edit.

A posts section usually gives every story its own thumbnail and lets the grid do the work. Here there is one picture and it is the whole page: the lead story, the masthead and the three stories under "Also in this issue" are all set on the same veiled photograph. The lead is display type, low and wide; the column is small, dense and fenced by hairlines. The collision of one headline against three quiet entries, on one ground, is the composition, and it holds in greyscale.

• Stories on the floor: the lead headline runs wide across the cover and the three further stories become a ruled row of three core/columns along its floor, each entry ruled above and below, stacked into a ruled list below 782px.

Inherits: every colour (veil contrast, type, links and rules base), the typeface, the spacing scale. Decides: the veil's opacity, the type ramp, the headline measure, the cover's minimum height. The headline is h1: this is a page opener.

Type sits on the image only because the veil makes the ground a known quantity: contrast at dimRatio 80 under base type. The standfirst and entries are body size, so they need the full 4.5:1, which the checker measures by compositing the veil over a white and a black photograph. Lower the veil below 80 and that stops being true.

• The lead headline is display: a bare clamp(2.75rem, 7.4vw, 10.5rem), off the theme's ladder, because its size is the composition. It is held to a measure of clamp(18rem, 56vw, 68rem) so it breaks into a block.
• The column's three titles are h3 on the x-large rung, so the column is a second mass beside the headline; in the floor row they drop to large. The standfirst is body copy on medium; the masthead, kickers, byline and dates are labels with their own clamp() floored at 15px.
• Only the lead headline is a link. Its wrapper states the link colour as the base chain, so a theme's accent link colour never lands on the veil, and textDecoration: none: it reads as a link by position, and an underline at display size is heavy. The three story titles are plain text, as in the catalogue's other post patterns; a one-line title link is under the 44px tap target.
• Hierarchy comes from size and the rules alone: nothing is set in capitals.

• The inner stack is a vertical flex group with space-between and a minimum height of clamp(36rem, 52vw, 60rem) (never vh): masthead at the top, the story row at the foot.
• The story row is core/columns, 62% and 38%, each column aligned to the bottom. Below 782px it stacks and the column drops under the lead.
• The cover keeps its default layout; inner groups state zero side padding.
• Rules are currentColor, so they are always the colour of the type.

The photograph: choose Replace on the cover. Then the lead story and its link, and the three entries. Add or remove an entry by duplicating or deleting its group; the last one carries the closing rule.

A short row on your theme's paper under the cover, a label and one paragraph at a 34rem measure, so the cover reads as a section and shows where it ends.

The copied markup includes a WordPress Photo Directory example photograph. The public image URL keeps the example visible after pasting. Select the cover and choose Replace to use your own Media Library file. See image credits for the source and license. Pasting an image URL does not import a Media Library attachment.