The Lily on Social, General Social, News & Politics

Below, we’ve rounded up a few highlights from our political and breaking news coverage on social media from the past year.

2018 Midterms

The 2018 midterms saw more women than ever run for, and get elected to, Congress. For many news outlets, that was one small story in a vast, complicated narrative; for us, it was worth charting closely.

In the run up to the election, we aggressively covered why the 2018 midterms were consequential for women candidates and voters alike.

Then, on election night, The Lily did something different: We live-painted a mural of an eagle with 184 feathers — one for each of the 184 women who were first-time candidates for congressional or gubernatorial seats, or sought a higher office in Congress — at the Line Hotel in Washington, D.C. As results rolled in, we painted in feathers to represent the women who won their races.

We live-streamed the entire night on Facebook, where we explained to viewers whom each painted feather represented: what she ran for, where she was from and why her campaign was noteworthy.

At the same time, we were posting the night’s notable female winners in real-time across all of our social platforms. Well into the early morning, we told women what they wanted to know: which women were making history, and how.

And after election night, we wanted to commemorate the history-making night in an atypical way. One project consisted of commissioning a comic artist’s reflections on the midterms, which we turned into a swipe-able comic on Instagram.

Kavanaugh-Ford hearings

One of the year’s most consequential news stories played out just weeks before the midterms: then-Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Beyond the usual coverage by other outlets, we shared stories that were made relevant by the hearings, which no doubt shook many women to their core.

In these posts, we hoped that women would find a platform to voice how the hearings impacted them — and, more broadly, how they forced a nation to wrestle with issues of sexual assault.

Six other big news moments from 2018

1. Kellyanne Conway says she is a victim of sexual assault (October): Our designers utilized typography to reflect the straightforward, powerful statement Conway made on CNN.

2. Bill Cosby sentenced to 3 to 10 years in prison (September): With a news item such as this one, our design had to strike a balance between subtle and impactful.

3. Naomi Osaka beats Serena Williams at the U.S. Open (September): This is how we covered the breaking news on Instagram, using the swipe feature:

And this is how we reflected on it a few days later:

4. A New York Times op-ed writer claims to be part of the Trump ‘resistance’ (September): With such a big news item, we chose to focus on how it was affecting the first lady — and used typography to tell the rest of the story.

5. The Royal Wedding (May): We commissioned an illustration for the much-anticipated wedding between Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

6. Larry Nassar sentencing hearings (January): We used the swipe feature to represent the myriad of women who came forward to share their stories of assault.