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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

2019: A year in The Verge illustrations

Sci-fi futures, toxic cultures, and scooter wars

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This past year The Verge launched an ambitious sci-fi series, broke stories that started conversations and forced change in industries, made our first zine, created interactive timelines, guides and a couple of straight-up video games. And for each one, we made a piece of art to carry the story through. So as New Year’s Day approaches, we’ve compiled our favorite illustrations from 2019, made by our art team and incredible freelancers.

If you want to see more beautiful work from The Verge, check out and follow us on Instagram @thevergeart. As always, our wallpapers page has original art for free download to put on your device. You can also head over to 2019: A year in photographs on The Verge to see the best of our photography from this year.

Online Reunion
Artist: Marcin Wolski

Monsters Come Howling in Their Season
Artist: Corey Brickley

Meet the scientists who are training AI to diagnose mental illness
Artist: Ana Kova

The god box: an oral history of Avatara
Artist: Jude Buffum

The Burn
Artist: Arik Roper

Why CAPTCHAs have gotten so difficult
Artist: Alex Castro

Skin City
Artist: Deborah Lee

Move the World
Artist: Zoë van Dijk

Machine of Loving Grace
Artist: Benjamin Currie

The Trauma Floor
Artist: Corey Brickley

The World Wide Web turns 30: our favorite memories from A to Z
Artist: Alex Castro

Why companies want to mine the secrets in your voice
Artist: Cathryn Virginia

The armchair psychologist who ticked off YouTube
Artist: Alex Castro

Foxconn is confusing the hell out of Wisconsin
Artist: William Joel

How the Game Boy found a new life through emulation
Artist: Alex Castro

15 game streaming services you can try before Google Stadia arrives
Artist: Alex Castro

Redline
Artist: William Joel

Why’d You Push That Button
Artist: Martina Paukova

Apple and Amazon cut a deal that upended the Mac resale market
Artist: Alex Castro

It’s easier to donate your body to science than your medical records
Artist: Mark Pernice

Metadata is the biggest little problem plaguing the music industry
Artist: Alex Castro

Bodies in Seats
Artist: Corey Brickley

How William Gibson’s long-lost Alien 3 script became 2019’s most intriguing audio drama
Artist: Alex Castro

One year after Trump’s Foxconn groundbreaking, there is almost nothing to show for it
Artists: Amelia Holowaty Krales & Michele Doying

The Mormon Church vs. the internet
Artist: William Joel

Deaths and injuries don’t slow Uber Eats’ rapid expansion in Mexico
Artist: Alex Castro

Instagram ‘tag cleaners’ are fighting against digital vandalism
Artist: Alex Castro

They said you could leave electric scooters anywhere — then the repo men struck back
Artist: Jude Buffum

It’s Sentient
Artist: Ana Kova

Welcome to Lower Duck Pond, a fake town of 82,000 people
Artist: Meredith Miotke

Split Screen
Artists: Alex Castro & Michele Doying

YouTube shows have become a secret weapon for rising politicians
Artist: Selman Design

Faraday Cage
Artist: Alex Castro

Death Stranding: an explainer for Hideo Kojima’s inscrutable new PS4 game
Artist: Alex Castro

The everything town in the middle of nowhere
Artist: Laurent Hrybyk

How one company you’ve never heard of swallowed tens of thousands of text messages — then spit them back out
Artist: Alex Castro

Pirate Radio
Artist: William Joel

Dial Up
Artist: David Huang

The Last Stand
Artist: Alex Parkin

One of PlayStation’s most important studios makes games about loneliness
Artist: Alex Castro

How to fight lies, tricks, and chaos online
Artist: Alex Castro

PlayStation 25th anniversary issue
Artist: Alex Castro, Photography by Richard Parry

Emotional baggage
Artists: Grayson Blackmon & William Joel

PS4 impact

The environmental impact of a PlayStation 4
Artist: Alex Castro

32 moments that made the decade
Artist: Alex Castro

The Terror Queue
Artist: Corey Brickley 

New Away leaks reveal employees worked without heat, struggled with headaches and nausea
Artist: William Joel