Throughout this extraordinary year, the art team at The Verge engaged in a remarkably diverse range of creative endeavors that spanned both the cultural zeitgeist and the frontiers of technology. Their favorite projects encompassed an eclectic mix of subjects — from the spectacular media frenzy surrounding DOGE and its memetic economy, to the persistent legends and reinterpretations of the Vietnam War, to the deeply fraught and highly personal issue of online privacy for trans individuals, and even to vast, intricate systems of surveillance orchestrated to track Iranian military dissidents across the digital landscape. Each project served not merely as a visual companion to journalism but as a profound artistic commentary on the evolving intersections between technology, politics, and human experience.
The team’s output was as experimental as it was impactful. Among their projects, they constructed a real, physical kaleidoscope designed to present the standout products featured in The Verge’s annual gift guides — an installation that translated the playful energy of consumer culture into a visually immersive spectacle. They also dispatched an illustrator into the dense, chaotic halls of a courthouse, where she captured in real time the faces, moods, and gestures of Luigi Mangione’s fans and onlookers amid his pretrial hearing. Further, the team explored the digital subcultures shaping modern communication, delving deeply into the disorienting yet revealing world of News Daddy to craft richly layered collages that mirrored how college students consume, remix, and emotionally process news today. Together, these works encapsulated a year defined by curiosity, artistic bravery, and a deep commitment to visual storytelling.
In reflecting on Wikipedia — an institution frequently criticized yet steadfast in its dedication to neutrality — Cath Virginia, The Verge’s art director, drew inspiration from unlikely sources: classical encyclopedias, neoclassical architectural motifs, and even the spontaneous image clusters of DK’s children’s books. She compared these associative image streams to the whimsical paths of hyperlinks on Wikipedia, where an innocent search might transport readers unexpectedly to pages like that of Grouvellinus leonardodicaprioi — a digital journey that captures the very essence of structured chaos inherent in knowledge-sharing platforms.
Creative director Kristen Radtke contributed to a commemorative package marking half a century since the fall of Saigon. Employing a split-screen design, she visually embodied the fragmentation and multiple truths surrounding the Vietnam War, a subject riddled with conflicting narratives and enduring myths. With vital engineering support from Graham MacAree and lush illustrations by artist Tran Nguyen, the project became both a historical reflection and a deeply human artistic endeavor.
Elsewhere, Virginia conceptualized an art direction centered on the uncertain futures of trans identity in an increasingly hostile societal and digital landscape. Her intention was to balance the haunting sense of danger with a transformative optimism — depicting not just fear, but the creative possibility that arises from resilience. Collaborating with Taehee Yoonseul, who designed a hypnotic looping animation, and Sasha Cherepanov, who generously licensed her striking typeface Transgender Grotesk, the project achieved a delicate harmony between vulnerability and empowerment.
During Luigi Mangione’s volatile pretrial hearing, assigning illustrator Molly Crabapple to the scene proved to be a stroke of curatorial brilliance by editor Sarah Jeong. Amid courthouse turmoil and uncertainty over access, Crabapple turned downtime into art, rendering expressive sketches of passionate fans and curious spectators. These illustrations not only documented the tension of the event but also conveyed the surreal theater of internet celebrity meeting judicial reality.
To explore the world of influencers and digital personas, Radtke devised a design that visually echoed the hypnotic scroll patterns of TikTok. The package employed bold, saturated colors and lively animated collages — each distinct in tone yet unified through rhythm and consistency — creating a vibrant mosaic of how personality, influence, and virality permeate online ecosystems.
Senior photo editor Amelia Holowaty Krales found her most joyous studio experience photographing this year’s gift guide images, created using a handcrafted mirrored structure perched atop a massive television screen. Together with Virginia, she choreographed the composition of selected products within a triangular mirrored setup to achieve a captivating kaleidoscopic visual effect entirely in-camera. The resulting images radiated a sense of play and craftsmanship that celebrated tangible creativity in an era dominated by digital tools.
Among the year’s most emotionally arresting projects was Matt Huynh’s illustrated comic chronicling a U.S. military psychological operation that sought to terrify Viet Cong soldiers through recordings of ghostly Vietnamese voices. Huynh’s lush brushwork and narrative precision transformed a little-known historical episode into a hauntingly beautiful meditation on fear, folklore, and the human psyche — one of the finest comics ever published on The Verge.
Ariel Davis’s unforgettable illustration of Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and JD Vance as a monstrous three-headed DOGE Cerberus captured, with both humor and unease, the absurd yet apocalyptic energy marking Trump’s early 100 days. The piece stood out not only for its wit but for its encapsulation of myth-making in modern politics.
Equally striking were Jovana Mugosa’s noir-inspired illustrations for a story about an Iranian ex-military officer hunted by state-sponsored abductors. Her use of shadowy greens, soft lavenders, and textural grain immersed readers in a cinematic world of paranoia and pursuit — a visual metaphor for the unnerving realities faced by dissidents.
In a more intimate vein, Ian Woods’s handmade collages paired with Eva Alicia Lépiz’s photography for a story on fatherhood and video games achieved a beautiful hybridity. The organic forms framing writer Joseph Earl Thomas and his children, intertwined with imagery from the Final Fantasy series, highlighted the interplay between reality, imagination, and the digital landscapes that often shape emotional connection.
Krales also turned her lens toward the legacy of Silicon Valley’s formative years, photographing women who survived the toxic conditions of early semiconductor factories and are now challenging the industry’s environmental negligence. Her portraits, infused with empathy and quiet strength, visualized both accountability and resilience in the face of industrial harm.
When senior reporter Tina Nguyen attempted to convey the abstract notion of “the infinite fringe” — an unending collage of meme-driven conspiracy imagery — Virginia’s accompanying artwork provided the perfect manifestation. Through a literal kaleidoscope of racialized and conspiratorial visual motifs, the piece mirrored the hypnotic descent into digital extremism that Nguyen’s prose described.
Some moments of collaboration achieved sublime simplicity. Radtke recalled one project where the headline and imagery aligned with sheer perfection — proof that when concept and execution meet in equilibrium, editorial design achieves the unmistakable ring of truth.
Finally, one of Virginia’s personal highlights of the year was Benny Douet’s photograph evoking what she humorously called the “nightmare blunt rotation” of JD Vance and Mark Zuckerberg at the Bitcoin Conference — an image that distilled both discomfort and fascination into a single, unforgettable frame.
Taken together, these projects chronicle not just a year in art direction, but a year in cultural inquiry — one in which The Verge’s creative team used illustration, photography, animation, and collage as tools for understanding a world that grows stranger, louder, and more interconnected with each passing day.
Sourse: https://www.theverge.com/tech/841568/art-2025-best
