(FORTUNE Small Business) – The design and photography of FSB probably attract more compliments from readers--including some who call or e-mail to complain about a story--than anything else we do. While the credit belongs to our entire art and photo staff, I'd like to introduce one member of that talented band, MICHAEL NOVAK, whom I've just promoted to associate art director. At 33, Mike is something of a relic: the longest-serving journalist at FSB, having joined in 1997, when it was called Your Company. (One of our veteran writers tells of phoning a firm and identifying herself as working for Your Company--to which the receptionist replied, "Well, honey, there's only eight of us here! How come I haven't met you?") A native of Los Angeles, Mike graduated from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and has worked as an illustrator and animator, including for the Fox TV hit King of the Hill. Scott Davis, FSB's art director, who recommended Mike's promotion, praises his "creativity, work ethic, and easygoing temperament--a rare combination in our business." In the issue you're holding, Mike designed the cover package on health insurance, the union-busters profile, the story on Main Street Resources, and the new layout for our columnists in Part One. In other FSB news:

JULIE SLOANE, who started at FSB as a reporter five years ago, has been promoted to staff writer. A Dartmouth graduate and native of Allentown, Pa., Julie, 27, is one of our most versatile talents--and hands-down our most avid collector of Pez dispensers. In the Off Hours section of the current issue, she profiled an entrepreneur who collects costumes from classic TV shows. Her recent subjects have included small luxury cruise ships (hey, somebody had to do it ...), a fast-growing legal-services franchise, a competition for software coders, and the discount real estate broker Foxtons.

JULIA BOORSTIN is on loan to FSB this year from our sister publication Fortune, and was recently promoted to writer-reporter. She also was named to the annual "30 under 30" designation of top financial journalists by TJFR, a firm that helps businesses learn more about the writers who cover them. Julia, 25, wrote this issue's feature on an inspector of small luxury hotels, and has also covered the Paul Frank fashion company and a hot Internet-telephony startup. If Julia's surname sounds familiar, you may have read of the recent passing of her grandfather, Daniel Boorstin, the celebrated author, scholar, and Librarian of Congress. I had the good fortune to meet him when I worked in Washington--and to see that his curiosity and energy live on through Julia.

RICHARD McGILL MURPHY, a new contributor who wrote this month's portrait of a pair of union busters, got interested in labor issues through tales he heard about negotiations between the Teamsters and his family's fifth-generation business in Wellesley, Mass. Richard, 38, was born in Beirut, where his father was a U.S. diplomat, and has lived all over the Middle East and Asia, with time out for degrees from Harvard and Oxford. He is completing work on a book based on his time in Pakistan; it's called Lahore Nights and will be published next year by Knopf.

BRIAN O'REILLY, 55, a retired Fortune editor, this month profiled the ambitious owner of a gourmet food chain in the Washington, D.C., area--the first installment of a new makeover feature. In each issue, we will help a successful firm propel itself to the next level, enlisting on-site advice from America's top experts in retailing, management, technology, and so forth. We'd love to get your thoughts, and any candidates you'd suggest for a makeover, at editor@fsb.com.

BRIAN DUMAINE, 50, my deputy and the editor of our makeover series, is working with our partners at Reed Exhibitions on a series of conferences to help small-business owners learn new growth strategies from one another. At our first event, in Las Vegas on May 13, Brian and other FSB journalists will present case studies of the nation's most successful entrepreneurs, along with programs by consultant and FSB contributor Verne Harnish, FSB columnist and former Philadelphia 76ers owner Pat Croce, and Jeff and Rich Sloan, hosts of Startup Nation, a nationally syndicated radio show. We hope to see you there, or at events later this year in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Orlando. For details, please go to sbconferences.com.

--DAN GOODGAME