Every year, Google's Year in Search campaign recaps the year's biggest searches. But 2016 left people searching for the good in this year. Our challenge was to create a film that reflected the search data, while celebrating a year most people just wanted to forget. But when we dug into the searches, a surprising trend emerged: even in darkness, there were glimmers of hope. So our campaign used the iconic Google Search Bar as a framing device to highlight moments of humanity, hope, and love within the year's biggest searches. We launched our campaign with a two minute film, created consecutive print ads in major publications, and made a digital hub where people could explore the year’s searches even further. In the end, people spent an equivalent of more than 36 years looking back at a year nobody wanted to remember through the lens of Google Search.