MICHAEL BYERS | COVER ART FOR CANADA WORLD CUP FOR SPORTS ILLUSTRATED
May 18, 2026 Michael Byers
Sports Illustrated paired illustrators with each of the 48 National teams competing in the 2026 World Cup, creating 48 digital magazine covers. #lcmartist Michael Byers was invited to illustrate Canada’s cover.
Mike was excited at the opportunity about representing Canada in this amazing Sports Illustrated series. Any time he can have the honor to work with Sports Illustrated he tries to take it. While he doesn’t always follow all sports, he surely loves to draw anything athletic as it usually makes for a dynamic, fun image. In this case the opportunity not only to draw a sports themed image but to represent his own country was something that he was super excited about. The biggest challenge in this piece was restraint. It took a lot of mental effort to keep him from creating something super busy like he normally does and distill the idea to a more narrowed idea while still some way representing what he thinks of as Canada. He chose the northern lights because of Canada’s great vast north. Also he chose to keep it to one figure and a forest and mountain landscape to help represent the vastness of land that is Canada. Mike says, we are not many but we are mighty.
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