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The Year in Illustration, The New York Times, Dec. 30, 2018

 

Its New Year’s Eve 2018.

We end the year and look back at it with the Editor’s Pick from yesterday’s Sunday New York Times, the last December day with a December day to follow.

Something different to be sure. And incredibly compelling. Illustrations accompanying articles throughout the year.

An ancient pursuit in a new incarnation of art imititating life, introducing us to some of the best writing throughout this (one more) extraordinary year since the end of civilization as we knew it.

As always, it ranges from the shallow to the sublime, one-dimensional to multi-dimenational, in some ways another preview of a much worse vanity of the bonfires than ever before, perhaps to consume us all when the fire next time becomes the fire this time.

But more often than not, at least some actual thinking about things needing thinking about.

Editor’s Pick, Sunday New York Times, December 30, 2018:

2018: The Year In Illustration

WE CALL ON ILLUSTRATORS late at night, in the early morning and on deadline. The subjects are complex: #MeToo, the immigration debate, climate change. We ask them to address these topics with sensitivity, wit and feeling — to add fresh perspective and avoid cliché. Also, “Can you send a sketch in a few hours?”

Take it all in.

See you next year.

 

 

WE CALL ON ILLUSTRATORS late at night, in the early morning and on deadline. The subjects are complex: #MeToo, the immigration debate, climate change. We ask them to address these topics with sensitivity, wit and feeling — to add fresh perspective and avoid cliché. Also, “Can you send a sketch in a few hours?”

We call on them because, at a time when the news cycle can feel relentless and overwhelming, these images make a different kind of impact: conveying emotion, creating space for thought, adding depth to subjects that may feel at once both too complex and overly familiar.

From the thousands of illustrations that appeared in print and online in The New York Times this year, here are some of the most notable: the ones that surprised us, that made us feel something, that made us laugh — the ones that made us pause a moment longer than we might have on a busy day in 2018.

ART DIRECTORS: GAIL BICHLER, JOSH CRUTCHMER, JOHN J. CUSTER, JIM DATZ, ANTONIO DE LUCA, ALICIA DESANTIS, MATT DORFMAN, CATHERINE GILMORE-BARNES, BEN GRANDGENETT, NATHAN HUANG, AGNES LEE, HANNAH K. LEE, TRACY MA, JASPAL RIYAIT, ANDREW SONDERN, MATT WILLEY, SARAH WILLIAMSON, ANDREA ZAGATA

PRODUCED BY GRAY BELTRAN, JIM DATZ, ANTONIO DE LUCA, ALICIA DESANTIS, NATHAN HUANG, HANNAH K. LEE, ANDREW ROSSBACK AND SARAH WILLIAMSON