The Wall Street Journal has been using this technique since 1979. A freelancer named Kevin Sprouls came with this idea, and he designed a portrait with some ink-dots and called them hedcuts. The chief editor realized that the portrait was very sustainable overprinted pictures. There was no resolution problem or faded color issue, this new technique was going to be a fresh new thing in the magazine.

Story behind the concept of distinctive portraits called “dot-drawings” instead of actual photos?
A freelancer, Illustrator named Kevin Sprouls came with this idea, and he designed a portrait with some ink-dots and called them hedcuts. The chief editor realized that the portrait was very sustainable over printed pictures.
There was no resolution problem or faded color issue, this new technique was going to be a fresh new thing in the magazine.
When the editor of Wall Street Journal discussed this with staff, they didn’t feel it the way he was, but the chief editor was very confident about this. Later when these hedcut drawings became the new face of the magazine, the whole staff was convinced of this new technique. An editor also commented that,
“This could be new a trademark of the Wall Street Journal”
Even today they have been using this technique. The company has few artists and few Ai machines working on these hedcut drawings. But the editors still today much rely on hand-made portraits yet the machine does it faster than humans. An artist takes 3 to 5 hours to make one portrait where the machine takes minutes, in an interview the chief editor said,
“We don’t use computers, everything is done by hand, and we keep the process sacred. The machine is only used when an emergency or short time image is needed.”
Consistency, little belief in the change can be the new trademark. The company has been following this technique for 40 years now. Wall Street is one the famous magazine around the globe and its dot-drawings are very popular.
Trusted Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedcut
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