The archive · Content & Film · Product decision · 2023–2024
Guardian's Long Read special binds longform journalism into a 100-page print magazine
The Guardian turns its slowest journalism into a physical object: a beautifully bound 100-page special of its best long reads, kept in D&AD's archive.
The Guardian
What it had to solve
The Guardian's Long Read franchise published gripping, immersive longform journalism on politics, philosophy, food and crime. This exclusive special edition set out to bring the very best of it together in one place, in a printed form whose craft matched the depth of the writing.
How it works
The Guardian's Long Read franchise stands for journalism that takes its time: gripping, immersive longform stories on everything from politics to philosophy, food and crime. Readers usually met them one at a time, in the paper or online.
The Long Read magazine changed that encounter. It gathers the best of the franchise into one exclusive, beautifully bound, 100-page special, showcasing pieces on humanity's war on Japanese knotweed, the disappearance of fish and chips shops across Britain, and Durex's long quest to make condoms sexy. Walstead Roche handled production.
The craft of the object is the idea: a physical special that readers keep and take time over makes the tagline 'the best stories take time' tangible. D&AD's awards archive preserves the magazine under Magazine & Newspaper Design, and the archive records no sales figures, so the documented result is the product itself.
Why it lands
- The magazine literalizes the franchise's tagline: a beautiful, bound 100-page object says these stories deserve more than a quick scroll.
- Curating the best long reads into one finite special turns scattered weekly reading into a single, savored collection.
- Production craft — careful binding, a 100-page format, a named production company — makes longform feel premium, matching the form to the seriousness of the writing.
- It extends a digital and newspaper franchise into a durable artifact that can be kept or revisited rather than lost in a feed.
What it did
The special turns scattered long reads into a physical, collectible object that a reader keeps rather than scrolls past. The D&AD awards archive preserves it under Magazine & Newspaper Design; the archive records no sales figures, so the documented result is the product itself.
What you can take
A format can carry the argument: when the content's whole point is taking time, give it a physical object made with care, and the medium proves the message before the first word is read.
Since then
The magazine was preserved in the D&AD awards archive under Magazine & Newspaper Design, and the Long Read franchise continued publishing its longform journalism. The archive records no sales or readership figures, so the case stands on the format idea: giving journalism that takes time a physical object made with corresponding care.
Sources
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