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• March 2003: “We Plan to Geekify Best Buy” Robert Stephens, founder of the Geek Squad, appeared in many an issue of TCB up until this one. That’s not only because he ran one of the most creative companies in the Twin Cities, he was also game for just about anything. When Best Buy bought the Geek Squad, we put the Chief Geek in a Best Buy cart, and let special effects do the rest. Stephens has since moved to the West Coast.

• November 2004: “To Cast a Long Shadow” This was a simple concept: The IDS Center photographed to show how imposing it still is. Since it opened in 1972, it has been joined by other tall buildings in downtown Minneapolis, notably the Capella Tower. The cover story made it clear that despite the changes in the downtown commercial real estate market, the IDS remains a desirable business address—and that all the large structures that followed it exist because of its success.

• November 2007: “Tough Enough” Want to run a tough small business? Open a boxing gym. And do it as a woman. Lisa Bauch, owner of Uppercut Boxing Gym in Northeast Minneapolis, had a distinctive entrepreneurial dream. This issue’s cover story photograph conveys Bauch’s milieu and her intense determination, without resorting to any “tough-girl” clichés.

• September 2008: “441 Opening Nights” Theater in the Twin Cities is as much an industry as an art form. For our cover story on the Twin Cities’ mighty theater scene, we borrowed a photograph of Sheila Livingston from an Ivey Awards promotion from 2008. (The Ivey Awards are the local equivalent to the Tonys.) Livingston has been associated with the Guthrie Theater since its earliest days in the 1960s, when she join its volunteer organization.

• June 2010: “Who’s Ready to Hire the Millennials?” Our cover story on one of the 2000s ubiquitous business topics—the impact of millennials in the workplace—made an impression with a striking cover image. A casually dressed model with her Starbucks in hand was photographed on a downtown Minneapolis street. The image captured the confidence often attributed to the new entrants to the workforce. Employers can’t decide: Are they overly entitled or just gung-ho?

• August 2011: “Game Face: Zygi Wilf in the Red Zone” Zygi Wilf can be pretty serious, especially when he’s being asked questions by a reporter about delays in receiving state support for a new Vikings football stadium. But TCB-regular photographer Travis Anderson did his usual masterful job of getting his subjects to relax and smile. We liked it, but we needed to do something to more quickly and clearly convey “here’s a man who loves owing a football team!” So we Photoshopped in the face paint.

• May 2012: “The Untold Story of Tom Petters” Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary doesn’t allow cameras. Inmate number 14170-041—Thomas J. Petters—sits out what in essence is a life sentence for a crime far less severe than murder, which often allows for early release. To illustrate the sense of being tucked away in a penitentiary, we surrounded an image of a jail cell with black. The combination also helped convey the depths to which we went to obtain the interview, Petters’ first since 2008.

• June 2012: “Tourism Wars!” Our idea for this cover was to have an illustrator come up with something that looked like the board game Risk, where small figures representative of each state would be placed on a board showing the five-state Upper Midwest ready to battle. Instead, art director Scott Buchschacher came up with the idea of having a scene of characters representing the three most active states duking it out for tourist dollars. Two journalism contests named this cover an award-winner.

• February 2013: “Alter Egos” Dave Wirig strolls into Hell’s Kitchen toward the tail end of the lunch hour looking every bit his part as the co-founder of a medical equipment firm. He introduces himself, asks where he’s needed and disappears for what we think will be a few minutes.He’s been replaced by his alter ego, rock-god wannabe “Davey Roxx.” Wirig was perfect to start our feature on how some of the Twin Cities’ leading executives make their mark in very unexpected ways after hours.

• February 2013: “Zimmern Incorporated” The cover was shot at Andrew Zimmern’s Minnibar concept restaurant near gate G4 at MSP International Airport. The Travel Channel star arrived in street clothes, changed into business attire, and went about shooting several dozen angles and compositions. The images were shot over the lunch hour. The shoot proved so distracting for one waiting passenger that she failed to board her flight to Tokyo, which left without her.