Here’s to 2016

Are you ready to relive the best and worst moments of 2016? Well good news, friends, we've got your cheat sheet right here! Beutler Ink compiled the biggest stories of the year—from Donald Trump to Dat Boi to Stranger Things to... well... back to Donald Trump—and handed them over to talented illustrator Niv Bavarsky to bring to life. The Garden of Earthly Delights-inspired graphic was featured in dozens of media outlets including HuffPo, Gizmodo, Design Taxi, El Pais (Spain), The Bergerie (France), Vinegret (Russia), and A Day Magazine (Hong Kong).

Here's To 2016

As the possibly apocryphal Chinese curse has it: “May you live in interesting times.” The past year has been many things—we can start with astonishing, bizarre, and confounding—and interesting is certainly somewhere on that long list of adjectives. So whether it's a gift or a curse, you should be thankful you were here to experience it! And you might also be thankful that, once again, your ol' pals at Beutler Ink have compiled the most memorable moments from an interesting year into an exceptional illustration!

You can click above to explore the giant graphic—but set some time aside before you dive in, because there's a whole lot of action to look at. You can click here to purchase a copy. And you can also scroll further down for a behind-the-scenes look at how our team executed the project from start to finish. 

Enjoy, Beutler Ink


Here's to 2016

Behind the scenes

As always, we began compiling possible news items, cultural events, and notable personalities for inclusion as soon as the new year kicked off. Sadly, one of the first additions to our list was David Bowie, who passed away in early January.

As the year continued, our RIP list just got longer and longer. We regret that we weren't able to find space for Elie Wiesel, Glenn Frey, Morley Safer and many others. But our graphic does include a record-setting—for us, anyway—27 RIP depictions, including a last-minute addition of astronaut and hero John Glenn. (Not all of our RIP entries are necessarily "heroic." Fidel Castro is one of the most significant figures of the 20th century, so we had to include him despite his awful record of repression. To paraphrase the Twitter adage, depictions =/= endorsements.)

By October, we had a massive Google Doc full of possible items for inclusion, and it was time to decide on a backdrop. We briefly considered a Rio Olympics setting and a Westworld-inspired milieu, but after a team member suggested Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch's "The Garden of Earthly Delights," there was really no other option. The famous triptych was in the news back in February thanks to a high-resolution interactive exhibition of the work, and the painting seems just as relevant (and haunting) now as did when it made its debut around 500 years ago.


Design

With the key content components in place, it was time to move into illustration. Our previous "Here's to" graphics each had slightly different flavor thanks to the diverse illustrators we used—Mario Zucca in 2013, Noah Smith in 2014, and Luke McGarry in 2015. This year, we recruited the extremely talented Niv Bavarsky, a Los Angeles-based artist whose playful work has been featured in The New York Times, Wired, and Bleacher Report. Niv's drawings weave together surrealism and caricature (among other elements) so he was an absolutely perfect fit for this Boschian undertaking.

Here's to 2016 sketch

His first full sketch of the graphic (above) completely nailed the concept, and we knew we were on the cusp of something great. But the final graphic he sent across exceeded our already-high expectations. Everything from the color scheme to the character depictions to the visual cohesion is absolutely perfect. We're just thrilled with this graphic and hope you love it as much as we do. 

(And please get in touch with us if you want to create an equally stunning piece of content.)

An illustrated answer key is included below, along with a full list of people and events included in the graphic. How many can you identify?

  1. Harambe RIP

  2. Chyna RIP

  3. Rob Ford RIP

  4. Leonard Cohen RIP

  5. Prince RIP

  6. Vanity RIP

  7. David Bowie RIP

  8. Gene Wilder RIP

  9. Alan Rickman RIP

  10. Jo Cox RIP

  11. Merle Haggard RIP

  12. Phife Dawg RIP

  13. Muhammad Ali RIP

  14. Garry Shandling RIP

  15. Janet Reno RIP

  16. Fidel Castro RIP

  17. Pat Summitt RIP

  18. Sharon Jones RIP

  19. José Fernández RIP

  20. Arnold Palmer RIP

  21. Harper Lee RIP

  22. Anton Yelchin RIP

  23. Florence Henderson RIP

  24. Gwen Ifill RIP

  25. Antonin Scalia RIP

  26. Nancy Reagan RIP

  27. Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando

  28. Black Lives Matter movement

  29. Dallas PD sniper victims

  30. Oakland warehouse fire  

  31. No Man's Sky

  32. Chicago Cubs finally win!

  33. Vin Scully retires

  34. Candace Parker and the Sparks win WNBA championship

  35. Kobe Bryant retires

  36. Von Miller and the Broncos win Super Bowl

  37. Hodor holding a door

  38. Colin Kaepernick takes knee during anthem

  39. Simone Biles + Final Five

  40. LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, and Cleveland Cavaliers win NBA championship

  41. Syrian refugees

  42. Squirtle [Pokemon]

  43. X-Files

  44. Facebook Live and Chewbacca mask lady become popular

  45. Member Berries

  46. Finding Dory

  47. Kim & Kanye had a rough year

  48. La Croix beverage

  49. Beyoncé's Lemonade

  50. Frank Ocean's Blonde

  51. Chance the Rapper's Coloring Book

  52. Tracer from Overwatch

  53. Ghostbusters relaunch

  54. EASTER EGG you'll have to find yourself. No hints!

  55. Issa Rae on Insecure  

  56. Hamilton's Lin-Manuel Miranda is omnipresent

  57. Pidgey [Pokemon]

  58. Super hero movies are one big super hero brawl

  59. Atlanta is a hit

  60. Westworld intrigues

  61. Eevee [Pokemon]

  62. Eleven from Stranger Things

  63. D.W. Read's Arthur meme

  64. Hulk Hogan's lawsuit crushes Gawker

  65. Negan terrorizes on Walking Dead

  66. here come dat boi

  67. Cassian Andor, Jyn Erso, and K-2SO from Rogue One

  68. President Obama visits Cuba and Laos

  69. The ghost of Twitter trolls

  70. Kim Kardashian's stolen jewelry

  71. Kylie's lip kit

  72. Leonardo DiCaprio finally wins an Oscar for his role in The Revenant

  73. The Pen Pineapple Apple Pen guy

  74. Luke Cage

  75. Elizabeth Holmes peddles snake oil

  76. Marcia Clark, O.J. Simpson, and Robert Shapiro

  77. Samsung Galaxy Note 7 phones on fire

  78. RIP Vine

  79. Yahoo has a fire sale

  80. RIP The Toast

  81. Flint, Michigan still doesn't have clean water

  82. Steven Avery in prison jumpsuit

  83. Standing Rock protests

  84. Michael Phelps

  85. Katie Ledecky

  86. Ryan Lochte

  87. Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez celebrate Leicester City's first Premier League title

  88. Kevin Durant joins Golden State Warriors after their Finals loss

  89. Ma'a Nonu of New Zealand's record-setting All Blacks rugby team

  90. Viral photo of woman arrested while protesting police brutality in Baton Rouge, Louisiana

  91. Malheur Standoff led by Ammon Bundy

  92. Celebrity splits: Johnny Depp & Amber Heard, Taylor Swift & Calvin Harris, Brangelina

  93. Seven states vote to legalize marijuana

  94. Pokémon ball

  95. Bulbasaur [Pokémon]

  96. Zika-carrying mosquito

  97. Conor McGregor / Nate Diaz bout

  98. David Cameron resigns as Prime Minister after Brexit vote

  99. Theresa May becomes UK Prime Minister

  100. North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory blocks bathroom access

  101. Huge crowd of Bernie supporters

  102. Bernie Sanders

  103. Roger Ailes leaves Fox News in wake of sexual harassment claims

  104. Water bottle flip

  105. Damn Daniel back at it again with the white Vans  

  106.  Ken Bone

  107. FBI investigates Hillary Clinton's email server

  108. Nate Silver never rules out a Trump win

  109. Epicurean Trump supporter Scott Adams

  110. Rudy Giuliani rages

  111. Sean Hannity find loves

  112. Melania cribs Michelle's speech

  113. Hillary Clinton

  114. Huma Abedin

  115. Anthony Weiner remains indecent

  116. Steve Bannon

  117.  Vice President-elect Mike Pence

  118. Ivanka Trump

  119. Lovable Pepe the Frog transformed into Evil Alt-Right mascot

  120. Reince Priebus tries to stage manage

  121. Julian Assange

  122. Vladimir Putin

  123. President-elect Donald Trump

  124. "Grab them by the pussy"

  125.  #Pizzagate

  126. John Glenn RIP  

  127. Hyper Light Drifter

Here's to 2016 key
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