The book’s cover design was inspired by the illustration on the cover of the June 1937 issue of Fortune magazine, which was drawn by illustrator Antonio “Tony” Petruccelli (1907–1994).

Petruccelli was an accomplished, prolific, and highly acclaimed American illustrator. He designed 26 covers for Fortune, with his first illustration appearing in September 1933 and his last one published in 1945. Petruccelli also created for the magazine charts and diagrams, maps, illustrations, and caricatures. Interestingly, he designed the American Steel Industry commemorative stamp of 1957, in recognition of the 100th anniversary of the US steel industry.

In 1993, while rummaging through a bin containing old magazine covers at a flea market, Paul S. froze when he saw the Fortune magazine cover and instantly fell in love with it. He purchased the cover for $30, had it framed, and has hung it on his wall ever since. When thinking about possible cover designs for the book, the image seemed like an obvious choice.

Getting permission to use the illustration was no easy task. Paul S. contacted the Morris Museum in New Jersey, which had held a recent exhibition of Petruccelli’s work. Through the museum’s curator, Paul finally got in touch with Petruccelli’s son Michael, and was granted permission. We thank Michael (and the entire Petruccelli family) for generously granting us permission to use the original illustration.

When the authors were brainstorming ideas for the design of the book’s cover in March 2015, Paul S. showed Jen Gallagher a bunch of different design elements on the Internet that he liked, including Antonio Petruccelli’s Fortune cover. Jen has had a lifelong passion for art and design. She attended the School of Visual Arts in New York City and studied archeology in Greece. Although she currently works in investment banking, she ran a successful custom invitation business for 11 years.

As Paul described the book, Jen took mental notes and started her own brainstorming. Using only Microsoft Word and images she collected on the Internet, Jen designed three cover mock-ups within a couple of hours. On the afternoon of April 4, 2015, she surprised Paul with the images below:

While Paul S. loved them all, he naturally gravitated toward the one with Petruccelli’s ticker tape. Paul J. had the idea of having a design competition, but the contest never got off the ground. As part of the process, the illustrators at John Wiley took a stab at a cover design, which we show on the lower left. After some editing back and forth, we settled on the final cover image on the lower right, which, as you can see, is little changed from Jen’s original design.

While we created the diagrams ourselves, neither of us is an artist, therefore, the use of illustrations raised a critical issue as we felt the look and feel of the images needed to be consistent throughout the book. The only way to achieve that goal was to find an illustrator to create all of the images. In March 2016, Paul S. stumbled upon an illustrator, Charlie Pendergraft, on Instagram (@drawmecharlie), who Paul thought was very creative and reasonably priced. Over the course of a year, Charlie produced more than 300 illustrations that we have used in the book.

Charlie is an independent illustrator from Colorado Springs, CO. When asked to describe himself, he says that he “spends his time drawing comic greatness and drinking too much coffee.” Not only is Charlie a professional artist, but he is a devoted father to three boys and an extremely talented piano player. He can be found at www.charlietheillustrator.com, or Google “draw me Charlie.” The illustrations in our book are a departure from his usual commissions of voluptuous pinups. We think Charlie enjoyed his time working in the financial world, but then again, many of our images are a departure from what one would find in the standard investment book.