Long revered among people who admire CD cover art, Sagmeister took a year off to prepare this book. It worked. There are cute tricks, like the red plastic cover, which, when removed, reveals hidden, much less cheerful pictures and text. But there is substance too. Sagmeister, who once carved words into his body and photographed it for a poster (grisly results on page 190), bravely shows bad work as well as good and annotates it all in his spidery handwriting. This makes it, unlike most graphic-design books, a good read as well.
Animated actors dominated the box office, Barry Bonds hit 73 and 'It' turned out to be a scooter. TIME picks the bests and the worsts of this year...