The archive · Design & Visual · Product decision · 2022
The Paris Review redesigns its magazine to read and shelve like a book
The Paris Review's redesign trims the magazine to book size, warms its paper and moves cover lines to the spine, so issues shelve like books.
The Paris Review
What it had to solve
The Paris Review, a 69-year-old magazine with a long history of showcasing literature and art, set out to redesign itself. Its heritage had to guide the new design, rather than imitating newsstand fashion.
How it works
The Paris Review had spent 69 years showcasing literature and art when it set out to redesign itself. The magazine's own heritage became the brief: readers were people settling in with serious writing, not shoppers grabbing a newsstand impulse, so the new design took its inspiration from books rather than from the magazine rack.
That idea ran through the physical object. The trim size was slightly reduced so an issue is easy to hold in one hand and read on the go; the pages are printed on warm, textured paper reminiscent of book stock. Most tellingly, the cover lines that once cluttered the front cover were moved to the spine, so a cover could simply carry art and a row of issues could be found the way a shelf of books is found — by their spines.
The redesign never touched the writing; it changed what holding the magazine feels like. An issue that reads like a book, weighs like a book and files on a shelf like a book quietly claims that The Paris Review belongs next to the literature it publishes. D&AD later archived the redesign in its awards archive.
Why it lands
- Long-form literature is read at leisure, so a trim that fits one hand matches the content instead of fighting it.
- Moving cover lines to the spine borrows bookshop wayfinding: on a shelf people find books by spine, so the magazine became findable among the books it publishes.
- Warm, textured paper tells the hand the magazine is a lasting object before a single word is read.
- Clearing the front cover gives artwork authority, a natural move for a magazine whose heritage is showcasing art.
What it did
The physical object now behaves like a book: a reader can hold it comfortably, covers get quiet space for art, and back issues are findable spine-out among books. D&AD added the redesign to its awards archive.
What you can take
When a publication is meant to be kept rather than consumed, design it for the shelf: book-like scale and paper, with the identity on the spine, turn each issue into an object readers want to keep.
Since then
The redesign arrived in 2022, led by Pentagram partner Matt Willey, and was later added to the D&AD awards archive. By borrowing the language of books — scale, paper, spine — it gave a 69-year-old literary quarterly an identity that does not shout from a newsstand but earns its place on a shelf, signalling that the magazine sees itself as literature meant to be kept.
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