Behind the scenes with The Guardian creative team making all its election artwork by hand

It’s Nice That: How did this idea come about and why did you want to do it?

Chris Clarke (creative director): Whenever we start large editorial branding moments, we look back through similar moments in the past and reflect on how to do something that feels appropriate, and importantly relevant to our audience now. With (then) the general election looming we spoke to senior editors to help us refine a tone that we as The Guardian wanted to project. The main spark of inspiration came from a conversation with a desk editor describing the country as ‘broken’, with nothing fitting or working quite as it should. This in parallel with the rise in disinformation, and fakery either through AI or generative articles really cemented the idea to do the direct opposite and be as honest and transparent in the creative process as we could – to lean into the craft of doing things for real.

Harry Fischer (lead digital designer): We were also really inspired by this idea of what trust looks like in 2024. We knew this would be an election fought on lies and misinformation, so responded with a real, authentic and approachable look and feel. We explored a variety of ways of depicting a ‘Broken Britain’ and how it could be mended, piece by piece.

Also, The Guardian’s editorial look and feel often pairs clean, graphic typography with hand-rendered illustrations, grit and paper textures. We have spent years digitally recreating analogue results so we thought, why not do it for real?

CC: There was also the inspiring and unorthodox challenge of seeing if we could respond to live and dynamic news using a tactile and hand-made approach. I have been working in news design for almost 15 years, and never seen anyone attempt something similar. With the team of designers and the pool of talent we currently have, we’ve never been in a stronger, more agile position to attempt this. So we thought, fuck it.

CC: We’ve been very disciplined with ourselves. It took a while at the beginning to shake off the feeling of re-working something until it’s ‘perfect’ – but in that strive for perfection it was losing emotion. We began by setting ourselves very strict parameters and limitations — one of which being time — using this to force decisions and not being overly precious.

We’re fortunate that we have the full backing of all the editorial desks here. Meaning in practice, they’re very sympathetic to the laborious nature of creating this imagery – desks have been great in getting us pieces either in advance or pre-warning us with potential outcomes to spin up different iterations.

Currently on average we’re producing approximately three to four artworks a day – with some days as much as six. It’s a very cathartic process knowing that the speed of the news agenda will mean that some of these images will only be visible on the front of The Guardian for a matter of hours before being lost to the inevitable news cycle. All of which just adds to the spirit of the whole project.

INT: Do you have a mini style guide for the collages and their style – how do you regulate colour, type, etc. to make them coherent?

RC: We have created a style guide which has been the jumping off point for our creative thinking. There aren’t too many specifics in there, as to be honest, most of the consistency is coming through the process itself rather than referencing a specific style. We are using a mix of black-and-white and colour imagery, sometimes cuts, sometimes rips. The process is consistent by its nature but it’s also super flexible, allowing us to create artwork that feels bespoke for the stories.

HF: A few “behind-the-scenes” elements pop up in the imagery, like an office laser printer, a cutting mat that has seen better days, and a very lo-fi photography rig featuring a large lightbox that’s been hanging around on the desk. We haven’t yet thrown anything away yet either, so the same cut-out faces, buildings and limbs feature across multiple collages and will reappear going forward. We love this idea of all the imagery belonging to an evolving and moving campaign, rather than each living as an isolated illustration.

CC: It’s important to not be precious about these things — often utilising elements from another to build the base for something else. As the coverage develops and grows so does our response. Gluing these finished pieces down would go against the speed and dynamism of how we’re creating them. Wrongly casting them as finished pieces to admire rather than just documenting part of the journey as they’re intended.

INT: How do you make it look authentically handmade?

CC: In not only embracing the imperfections but amplifying them. We’re deliberately not removing any of the damaged paper, worn photocopies or dirty toner, and trying to be as responsive and immediate as possible. We’re often choosing the first composition and giving them very little enhancement from what is captured in the camera. We have a light box (salvaged from the bin of the imaging department!) that gives us a continuous top and side lighting (meaning that there is a degree of consistency across the lighting). However, as was the case with the debate, the coverage around the election doesn’t just sit within office working hours, so we’re having to allow for imagery shot on iphones under the tungsten glow of domestic lighting.

RC: We’ve consciously left mistakes we’ve made in the image, like when the knife rips an edge slightly or the rough cuts we’ve had to do quickly around a tricky outline – there’s no magic wand tool in real life!

We’re also developing and pushing our style guide as we’re going. For example we’re trying to come off the flat surface where relevant, creating depth and shadows to make the imagery feel tactile and real. A recent example was a scrunched up ball of paper made to look like a globe – and by raising the flat globe stand slightly off the background, we got some lovely shadows.

We’ve also been exploring how we can bring our cut-outs to life through animation. For our Election homepage we animated up all the politicians behind the House of Parliament. A big part of what we try to do is create some charm, some delight to our creative – and we’re finding some small elements of animation really help us do this, in a subtle way that doesn’t feel too whimsical or trivial.

CC: Due to the demand and speed we’re working too, we have deliberately refined our process by leaving the images unrefined – which we believe gives them an urgency, rawness and, importantly, integrity. Ultimately we want the image-making to reflect the mood of the country – chopped, broken and divided. Anything that glosses over that would be a disservice to our readers.