This TED Talk features art editor, Francoise Mouli, recorded live at TED NYC 2017.

So 24 years ago, I was brought to the New Yorker as art editor to rejuvenate what had by then become a somewhat state institution, and to bring a new artist

and to try to bring the magazine from its ivory tower into engaging with its times.

And it was just a right thing for me to do, because I've always been captivated by how an image

can, a simple drawing, can cut through the torrent of images that we see every single day,

how it can capture a moment, how it can crystallize a social trend or a complex event

in a way that a lot of words wouldn't be able to do,

and reduce it to its essence and turn it into a cartoon.

So I went to the library, and I looked at the first cover

drawn by Ree Irvin in 1925, a dandy looking at a butterfly

through his monocle, and we call it Eustace Thilly. And I realized that as a magazine had become

known for its well-in-depth research and long reports.

Some of the humor had gotten lost along the way,

because now often used to stillie was seen as a haughty dandy.

But in fact, in 1925, when we were in first Drew's image, he did it as part of a humor magazine to amuse the use of the era, which was the flappers of the roaring 20s.

And in the library, I found the images that really captured the zeitgeist of, let's say, the great depression. And it showed us not just

how people dressed or what the cars looked like, but also what made them laugh, what their

prejudices were. And you really got a sense of what it felt like to be alive in the 30s.

So I called on contemporary artists, such as Adrian Tumina here,

I often call on narrative artists, cartoonist, children's book authors,

and I give them themes such as, you know,

what it's like to be in the subway or Valentine's Day.

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