Permanent Headline is a bold, highly compressed sans-serif typeface in the neo-grotesque style.

[2][3] Similar to other common newspaper typefaces intended to be compact, such as Times New Roman, the design has deliberately minimised descenders to save space.

This distortion reaches an extreme level in Permanent Headline, with the descenders eliminated and tails such as the curve of the 'y' kept above the baseline.

[4] It was part of a larger “Permanent” sans-serif family without these attributes, which did not achieve such lasting popularity and has mostly not been digitised.

[7][8] Similar British designs from the period include Letraset’s Compacta, Stephenson Blake’s Impact and Matthew Carter’s masthead for Private Eye.