LAKE FOREST, Ill. -- Credit the NFL’s oldest franchise for being innovative enough to find a fun solution to one of the many disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Founded in 1920 by legendary Hall of Famer George Halas, the Chicago Bears -- originally called the Decatur Staleys -- have painstakingly preserved and documented the franchise’s decorated 100-plus year history. Included in their vast archives are team photos from nearly every season of the Bears’ existence.

The annual team photo is part of every NFL team’s seasonal punch list. Coaches and players can, on occasion, voice minor complaints over having to interrupt a midseason work day to be herded onto scaffolds in front of Halas Hall and smile for the camera, but the photo usually goes off without a hitch.

The tradition of the team photo seemed set in stone, until 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic turned NFL logistics upside down.

In-person offseason programs were scrapped and replaced by virtual meetings. Preseason games were canceled. Training camps were shortened. All 32 teams went to extraordinary lengths to keep players, coaches and staff members safe. Schedules had to be reimagined. Facilities had to be remodeled to allow for social distancing. Masks were required at all times inside team buildings. Daily COVID-19 tests for players, coaches, staffers and certain employees became the norm.

As training camp ended in late August, the Bears met to discuss the fate of the team photo and decided to do something different, hiring local artist and designer Eliot Zuniga.

“We didn’t want 'nothing' to be an option and just skip the team photo this year,” Bears senior vice president of marketing and communications Scott Hagel said.

“We brought up the idea of everyone wearing masks, and other ways we could put this together, but when you look at what the NFL COVID-19 protocols are, it would be doing everything that we are being asked not to do. Like, literally, it would involve doing everything that we are not supposed to do.”

The Bears were already familiar with Zuniga’s work. A native of Elmhurst, Illinois, and admitted die-hard Bears fan, Zuniga, 36, was commissioned to illustrate last year’s game-day posters on social media.

So why not illustrate this year's team photo?

Zuniga had worked on side projects for the Bears, but doing an illustration of the team photo would be the most ambitious undertaking to date.

“The Bears reached out to me and said they loved the way I do portraits and asked if I could do this for them,” Zuniga said. “I was of course going to jump on that.

“I’m not sure some of the people I told about the project grasped what I was doing. This is the team photo. This is legit. It’s going to be in Halas Hall. My dad asked if it would be hung next to Walter Payton’s [image] and I had to break it to him that it probably would not to be next to Walter Payton’s bust, but you never know!”

Zuniga had roughly a month to finish the project. The Bears provided Zuniga with headshots of the players, coaches and staff who would be included in the photo. The picture -- for the first time -- would use an illustrated version of Soldier Field as the backdrop instead of Halas Hall.

Zuniga did the rest with his Apple Pencil and iPad.

“I think I had a total of 108 faces to do,” Zuniga said. “So I had to work quicker than I usually do. I limited myself to 30 minutes per face so that I could get this done. As an art director I can pick at things all day, but I had to be pencils down on each face after 30 minutes and keep it moving.”

There would be two versions -- one with masks and one without (see below). Zuniga felt the process sailed along -- save for the occasional hiccup.

“Just to be completely forthright, Matt Nagy and Ryan Pace, for some reason they both came out a little funny the first time,” Zuniga laughed. “Nagy and Pace in particular I had to go back to the drawing board a couple times but other than that it was pretty smooth.”

The Bears were thrilled with the finished product.

“Eliot being a Bears fan brings another layer of interest and effort that goes into these projects when you have a true fan and you can see the care that he put into it,” Hagel said.

“It’s reflective of the year. It’s a truly unique year where we are all having to do things differently than we have ever done before and for us the team picture was no different. We figured we had a pretty good solution to be able to actually represent the 2020 Bears."