Hedcut is a term referring to a style of drawing, associated with The Wall Street Journal half-column portrait illustrations. They use the stipple method of many small dots and the hatching method of small lines to create an image, and are designed to emulate the look of woodcuts from old-style newspapers, and engravings on certificates and currency. The phonetic spelling of "hed" may be based on newspapers' use of the term hed for "headline."
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These drawings are traditionally created at 18 by 31 picas (3 by 5+1⁄6 inches or 7.6 by 13.1 centimetres), and then later reduced to fit the column size.

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