the verge The art team was busy this year, creating illustrations, photographs and interactive designs to match stories about undersea undersea cables, competitive Excel, parental anxiety, AI companions and much more. Here's a look at our 20 favorite projects of 2024, including comments from those of us who have worked on the project.
In a special issue of 2004, The Verge It's a look back 20 years to examine how 2004 was the “year of the future”, sparking the Internet as we know and use it today. Kath Virginia absolutely crushed the hub design (with three skins! Remember the skins?), Graham McAree created the coolest pages, and Amelia Holovaty Cralls took the initial photos of my dreams. This package is a love letter to the time when we all found ourselves online for the first time and also a capsule of what we hope it can become again: a place for play, creativity, and connection. , Kristen Radtke, Creative Director
Photography by Go Takayama
To feature Josh Dziedza on the hundreds of thousands of miles of internet cables at the bottom of the world's oceans – and the people who fix and care for them – we've created a deep electric blue world of maps and diagrams. It's great to have the opportunity to mash up data visualizations and maps alongside stunning original photography, and Go Takayama's intimate photographs of these seafaring men put a face to an essential but otherwise invisible job. , Kristen Radtke, Creative Director
Photography by Stormy Payte
The scenes in these pieces are some of my proudest scenes the verge Projects. Stormi Payte's ethereal style of floral photography and projection mapping creates a rhythmic and mesmerizing feature design – it almost makes you fall in love. , Cath Virginia, Senior Designer
We started this story by trying to figure out how a group of Excel enthusiasts ended up on ESPN. We've explored how powerful, versatile and important spreadsheets really are and how much power they offer when you can reduce the world to rows and columns. In the process, our brilliant design team discovered another way to create spreadsheets: using rows and columns to tell a story, and portraying its characters in their natural habitat. , David Pierce, Editor at Large
Photography by Amelia Holovaty Cralls
From time to time, we work on a special-edition print project, and for our membership launch this year, we somehow convinced our colleagues to pose in 1980s office attire for us. material ghost magazine. This is an internet slavery issue, so I basically crammed as much nonsense and sludge as possible on top of the design. Our A/V producer Andrew Marino was the real MVP of this project, allowing us to literally transform him into a ghost. , Kristen Radtke, Creative Director
A person living in a house filled with “smart” technology — speakers, lights, a robovac — sits near a window and ignores the technology in favor of looking at the trees and clouds outside. Adrian Astorgano's vibrant art gives us a moving (figuratively and literally) picture of how today's smart homes are useful and even better, but not an end in themselves. -Barbara Krasnoff, Reviews Editor
Bringing Kristen Radtke's beautiful comic to the site was an interesting challenge: How do we preserve the artwork and animation without compromising performance? I think the amount of work that went into optimizing the piece ultimately paid off for the user experience. This is our most spontaneous comic yet. , Graham McAree, Senior Engineer
I love everything Samar Haddad creates, especially how she breaks down complex topics step by step in clever visual ways. For this short series on AI in games, he created a massive suite of graphics in a great retro vibe. I hate sports and I love this series. , Kristen Radtke, Creative Director
Photography by Amelia Holovaty Cralls; Design by Maeve Sheridan and Kath Virginia
Creating lead images for our gift guides is a big task every year. We source all the products, create different sets for each guide, and try to keep things fresh for the entire suite. I love the playful visuals created by photographer Amelia Holovaty Cralls with prop stylist Maeve Sheridan this year with the bold, poppy wrapping papers designed by our senior designer Cath Virginia. you can even buy your own custom the verge wrapping paper From our merchandise store. , Kristen Radtke, Creative Director
Photography by Amelia Holovaty Cralls
I was so excited to go to a party with them the verge Senior Photographer Amelia Holovaty Cralls: One, because it meant we both weren't ready for bedtime with our respective kids, and two, because she can convey a vibe so quickly through her lens. His photographs of the Pantone Color of the Year party are visual arguments in themselves, and his use of double exposure perfectly communicates the branded extravagance of the evening. , Kristen Radtke, Creative Director
Art by Kath Virginia with photos from Getty Images
There's a lot worth saying in this great, cohesive collection of images that helped bring our physical media issue to life. But I have to put a spotlight on a turntable made from floppy disks that is as clever as it is mesmerizing. , Andrew Webster, Senior Editor, Entertainment
Art by Kath Virginia, property of TurboSquid
most recognizable part of pitchfork – in addition to its logo – it has a 10-point rating scale. How do you explain the lack of a reputable music publication? You just turn down the volume. , Elizabeth Lopato, senior journalist
Photography by Amelia Holovaty Cralls
Wearables – especially smart rings – are tiny gadgets. So when it comes to art, it's really important to think about how to display them on the page as well as how to differentiate them from each other. (Let's be real, watches and rings start looking the same after a while.) Fun, colorful props and glitter nails! , Victoria Song, Senior Reviewer
Design by Mr. Nelson with photos from Getty Images
In one of the most disappointing election cycles of all time, Wouter Tzink Willink, aka Mr. Nelson did a fitting job with these uncomfortably jumbled collages. – Kath Virginia, Senior Designer
When people get older, they do not stop being people capable of enjoying. Mojo Wang's imaginative depiction of an older woman in celebration of her favorite music beautifully illustrates an article that tells how the author's mother used a smart speaker to enhance the final chapters of her life. , Barbara Krasnoff, Reviews Editor
Art by Kath Virginia with photos from Getty Images
I've written over the years about all the ways that search engine optimization creeps into Google, leading to a frustrating experience for both users and website operators. This image perhaps perfectly encapsulates SEO at its worst: insidious, corrosive, and just plain gross. , Miya Sato, platform and community reporter
Art by Kath Virginia with photos from Getty Images
Basically my favorite part of the story process is finding out what madness our art team has created this time. In this case, I think I told Kath Virginia that I felt like the “It's all Ohio” meme when I was reporting the story – this is all copyright law and always has been. And she went with it into the galactic brain. , Elizabeth Lopato, senior journalist
Richard Parry's playful 3D animations perfectly convey the iconic status of the infamous Optimus Maximus keyboard. , Cath Virginia, Senior Designer
Vice was never as big and solid as Shane Smith portrayed, and there was a cartoonish surrealism to the story that was captured perfectly in Hunter French's illustrations – whether it was the Buster Keaton-inspired lead art or by Smith. To promote the brand in secret deals. , Sure, there are a lot of complicated financial details involved, but the art really gets to the heart of the thing, right? , Elizabeth Lopato, senior journalist
Photography by Liam James Doyle and Montinique Monro
Miya Sato's article about the lawsuit involving two Amazon influencers is amazing, and the photos of these two individuals are a perfect pair. The images, which Montinque Monroe and Liam James Doyle took in Austin, Texas and Minneapolis, Minnesota respectively, were fantastic individually and worked so well together that it was really hard to choose which one to use. , Amelia Holovaty Cralls, Senior Photographer