I needed an idea for the covers of the series of books that I'm writing, Interactive Programming for Artificial Intelligence.

My budget was (close to) zero, and I can't call myself an artist. Many ideas came and went; none of them were distinctive enough. They weren't communicating the message of the book series.

The main message of the book series? These aren't just tutorials teaching some contemporary programming skills. I hope they are much more than that!

This book series has an interactive approach. Every concept I'm writing about is immediately illustrated with executable code. You can try it right away in Clojure's amazing super-console: the REPL, which provides a genuine connection between the programmer and the running program.

These are programming books. They go beyond theory, and they do not stop at cute demos. The code you'll write is fast, flexible and extendable. The real thing. Comprehensive, but approachable.

Not all of the books are strictly about Artificial Intelligence, they are also about the programming foundations that are important in building AI software.

These are several challenging areas on their own. Math: it's tough. AI: it's abstract. Functional programming: it's funky. High performance computing on the GPU: get out of here! Together? It's a tough sell!

Finally though, the answer fell into my lap. Meet Dog and Bird, they are two friends that bravely immerse themselves into challenging activities and make them effortless and fun!

These books are great for beginners. It's not easy, but everything is simply explained. You don't have to be an expert to start, but you will become one as you progress.