cover

Art direction and design for a graphic novel telling the story of Morgan Stanley’s founding. The book was one of the pieces created to celebrate Morgan Stanley’s 75th anniversary.

Credits

Creative direction: Brett Traylor

Writing: Andrew Watts

Art: Aaron McConnell

Lettering: Tom Orzechowski

Client: Morgan Stanley

interior

Aaron McConnell’s bold brushwork combines with a color palette of blues and grays.

interior

Extensive visual research helped get the details of people, places and events just right.

detail

Period details like the cars, pedestrians and the streetlamp pictured here bring Wall Street to life.

interior

The panel grid was designed so that the book could easily be read online. For the serialized web version, each page was divided into two independent views – one for the top half of the page and one for the bottom. Full-page panels, like the view of modern-day Times Square, were redrawn in the half-page format.

interior

The Gallery of Leaders at the back of the book presents short biographies of the firm’s presidents.