SVA Students Illustrate Extraordinary New Yorker-Inspired Covers that Imagine Post-Pandemic Life

By Amy Young. All images courtesy of Tomer Hanuka, shared with permission

Astute, evocative, and occasionally controversial, The New Yorker’s covers are keen observations of contemporary culture in their own right. The weekly renderings are widely recognized as visual interpretations of today’s most pressing issue that span politics, culture, and this last year, life during COVID-19. Inspired by this iconic imagery, third-year illustration students in Tomer Hanuka’s course at the School of Visual Arts created their own iterations, post-pandemic-style. From masked embraces and empty theaters to more somber silhouettes representing those who lost their lives to the virus, the covers encompass a range of emotions and realities for life after lockdown, an idea that’s reinforced with the students’ cleverly renamed masthead, Old New World. See some of our favorite illustrations below, and check out Hanuka’s Twitter thread, which has been widely shared in recent days, for the entire collection.