How The Daily Beast Made a Shit Year Look Really Good
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast
In a hellish year dominated by a worldwide pandemic and an election circus, The Daily Beast art team spun flaming garbage into illustration gold.
For most of 2020, time has warped into a slow-motion distortion of reality.
The pandemic has made days and weeks indistinguishable: a year full of nonstop horrifying coronavirus data, new tweetstorms from our nightmare-in-chief, more infuriating racial injustice.
Through it all, The Daily Beast art team has combed through hundreds of stories to make innovative illustrations to visually tell these narratives. You may think there’s only a handful of ways to creatively utilize a microscopic cell of coronavirus, but you’d be wrong.
Below, we’ve rounded up some of our favorite Beast art of 2020—and their corresponding reporting.
‘Pose’ Star Billy Porter Earned His Spot in Hollywood. Now He Wants to Be a ‘Beacon of Hope’
Illustration by Lyne Lucien/The Daily Beast
‘I Can’t Breathe’ Is the New American Anthem. Here’s How We Change That.
Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast
Why Are So Many Grateful Dead Fans Being Murdered?
Photo Illustration by Kelly Caminero/The Daily Beast/Getty
Trump’s GOP Goes From Live Free or Die to Live Free and Die
Photo Illustration by Sarah Rogers/The Daily Beast
How Mary Astor’s Purple Diary Sparked an Infamous Hollywood Sex Scandal
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Photo Illustration by Lyne Lucien/The Daily Beast/Getty
Inside Disney’s Ugly COVID Reopening Battle in California
Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast
The Only Curve That’s Flattening Is Trump’s Learning Curve
Photo Illustration by Sarah Rogers/The Daily Beast / Photos Getty
Breonna Taylor’s Family Gets a Settlement—but Not Justice
Illustration by Lyne Lucien/Getty
Dems Deliver Apocalyptic Message: Vote or Die
Photo Illustration by Lyne Lucien/The Daily Beast/Getty
How to Vote in a Dystopia
Photo Illustration by Sarah Rogers/The Daily Beast / Photos Getty
Captain Trump Steers America Toward Iceberg of Insanity
Photo Illustration by Lyne Lucien/The Daily Beast/Getty
Trump Brags: Coronavirus Response Could ‘Help, Not Hurt’ Me in November
Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty
Team Trump Frantically Plots New Ways to Make Him Feel Good About Himself
Illustration by Kelly Caminero/The Daily Beast/Getty
Casino Royale: Feds Say Chinese Drug Barons Laundered U.S. Coke Cash in Guatemalan Casinos
Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast
‘I Don’t Care If You Get Me Sick.’ People Are Still Dating—or at Least Sexting—During Coronavirus Pandemic
Illustration by Kelly Caminero/The Daily Beast/Getty
Trump Pardons Crooks to Feel Like a King
Photo Illustration by Kelly Caminero/The Daily Beast/Getty
Coronavirus Has Killed the Power of Touch. How Do We Reconnect?
Photo Illustration by Sarah Rogers/The Daily Beast / Photo Getty
The Country Could Use a First Lady. But Melania Trump Has Gone AWOL.
Illustration by Kelly Caminero/The Daily Beast
What Happens When All the Doctors Get Sick?
Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast
Trump Can’t Handle the Truth, and We Just Proved It
Photo Illustration by Lyne Lucien/The Daily Beast/Getty
FBI Sits on Report Detailing White-Supremacist Terror Threat
Photo Illustration by Sarah Rogers/The Daily Beast / Photos Getty/Wikimedia Commons
Are the Manhattan & the Martini the Same Cocktail?
Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast
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