“From The New York Times Magazine, ” ” this is ‘Behind the Cover.’” [STRING QUARTET PLAYING] “Our cover story this week is about the relationship between President Trump and his biggest lender, Deutsche Bank, the only major bank that didn’t forsake him after he proved to be a risky investment.” “We decided to go with a conceptual approach, and reached out to the designer Paul Sahre. But how do you visualize Trump, money and banking in an original way?” “Because we knew this was a particularly challenging cover, we were also working on some different options in-house.” “We were looking at any language that conveyed money, finances or debt. In the end, we liked Paul’s sketch of an I.O.U. with Trump’s signature on the bottom.” “Steering into the simplicity of this idea was part of the key.” “We looked at a lot of different backdrops. We wanted to do something bright and punchy that would grab people’s attention.” “The fact that the I.O.U. note is on this piece of notepaper that just doesn’t look official captures how fast and loose this whole operation was. In the end, what’s so successful about this image is that it manages, in a single object, to convey all of the layers of this complicated story.”