Here's an interesting animation by Jack van Wijk of the Eindhoven University of Technology that depicts various strategies for projecting the globe on a two dimensional surface. Some of these projections are well known while others are a bit more experimental.

You can find out more about the animation and the Unfolding the Earth project, including the names of the projections, on the project's site. Professor van Wijk has published a paper in The Cartographic Journal about Unfolding the Earth.

Thanks to Kay Guildner and Maps-L for the link.