This week, New York Magazine declared 2022 "The Year of the Nepo Baby" and published a thorough visual guide to what they dub the "nepo-verse."
If you haven't been keeping up with the discourse, nepotism baby is slang for the relative of a celebrity who's also famous, or at least reaping the benefits of their parent's connections. For those who haven't feasted their eyes on the guide, it maps each flavor of celebrity offspring from that of the Saturday Night Live variety to those who have become more famous than their parents. The diagram features a key for parent, stepparent, grandparent, and godparent. It also specifies if a nepo baby looks like their famous relative, went to a nepo baby-approved high school, or is a Golden Globe Ambassador.
The map was quickly digested by the internet, and those with a passion for graphic design recreated the map for meme-ing purposes mapping out iconic fictional families and making up clever family ties. Each fictitious addition to the map was captioned something along the lines of "damn, that nepo baby article was thorough!" One Twitter user added the Roy siblings from Succession and another drew familial lines between the cartoon cat Garfield and the British actor, Andrew Garfield.
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We spoke with Susanna Hayward, the deputy art director at New York Magazine and graphic designer behind the infamous nepo baby map, about what went into creating it and what it's like to have your work meme-ified.
Tell us about your background. Has your passion always been graphic design?
Prior to New York I worked at Marie Claire, Esquire, and Self. I’m a big magazine fangirl in all respects. I love reading, writing, and designing for editorial because it’s the most creative field a graphic designer can be in. We have the best source material to work with, and sometimes that means it’s viral-worthy.
Working on infographics is really my bread and butter. I love dissecting the information and coming up with a visual solution. I realize people flip through magazines quickly, so I really want to make something that people can stop and stare at, show their friends, maybe rip out and save for later.
How long did the creation of the nepo baby map take?
We work on a biweekly print schedule, but this project has been in the works by our editor Gazelle Emami and writer Nate Jones for months. I was brought in a few weeks ago, presented with an exhaustive list of roughly 500 or so names. We sat down and said, "OK….how can we make this fit on a few pages in the magazine, how will it live online" and went from there. This was a full magazine effort — our photo department, online visuals, social team, editors, art directors, everyone was involved. It's the best kind of assignment.
What was the creative process like?
The editor wanted a taxonomy of sorts, showcasing every nepo baby categorized methodically based on projects they've worked on, relation to fame, relevance, etc. My initial thought was "let's make a star map of the galaxy, and have every nepo naby connected in a solar system of sorts." That proved to be too difficult to fit on paper.
So we broke it down to basics: create a family tree for each nepo baby. Keep it scientific and educational, like something you might see in a textbook about the animal kingdom, or in a Natural History Museum, which I thought was especially funny coupled with the more low-brow subject matter. The brilliance is in the text itself, the funny facts and call-outs grab your attention so the design can be subtle, and straightforward.
Our design director, Thomas Alberty, had the idea of styling this to look like a chart from Spy magazine in the '80s and '90s. Their famed infographics with little cut-out heads, arrows, and information diagrammed some of the most absurd topics, but they are incredibly fun to look at.
Did you anticipate a strong reaction to the map?
The content is so on the pulse of what everyone is talking about right now, so I expected people to love it. I didn’t anticipate the design being brought into the conversation!
How quickly did the memes reach you?
Within a few hours of the cover going live, Twitter was on it with the memes. My boyfriend sent me the Ratatouille one, and I thought "aw that's nice, someone kind of made it look like the chart." I really had no clue everyone would be picking up on the format.
How does it feel to have your work become a meme?
It's hilarious! It's such a silly concept but really makes me feel like people are reading what we're writing and responding to it.
What's been the most surprising part of being meme-ed?
That anyone cared enough to make their own version! I’m glad the story was just as funny to everyone else as it was to us.
Do you have a favorite nepo baby map meme?
I mean, Ratatouille is pretty great. Though, the Andrew Garfield jokes are really the chefs kiss.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
