The Top 10 Everything of 2008

8. Los Angeles, September 2008

Three cheers for inventiveness! How many "Best of ..." covers have we seen that resort to predictable, tired photography to illustrate whatever the "bests of" happen to be? This one sticks convention in its ear — with a ballpoint pen, no less. My esteemed colleague Geraldine Hessler at Glamour cited the brilliance of this cover in a blog posting on the Society of Publication Designers website:

"For the September issue of Los Angeles, art director Joe Kimberling collaborated with illustrator and type designer Marian Bantjes to create the cover. The solution, done solely with a blue ballpoint pen, is a notebook covered with doodles inspired by a creative, yet distracted high school student. As Marian says on the contributors page 'I did everything but the bar code.'"

This cover is modern and a bit retro at the same time. And it stops you in your tracks because, on a crowded newsstand or a coffee table, it is a complete non sequitur and a great visual pun.

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