This month, the cover debate came down to the wire-not because we were having trouble finding something that worked but because we had two strong contenders. Internally we designed a straightforward direction-a building and a hybrid engine joined together-to represent the high-performance aspects of Stefan Behnisch’s structures. But in the end we went with Matthew Bouloutian’s bright illustration (above), which takes the same idea and adds a layer of process, a little Elliott Earls, and a dash of Takashi Murakami. Several editors described it as ‘hopeful,’ but the art department likened the decision to choosing between Metallica and Pizzicato Five.

See the runner-up cover after the jump.