Master of the Album Cover

Here’s one for your holiday wish list: Alex Steinweiss: Creator of the Modern Album Cover. Out next week from Taschen, this lushly illustrated coffee table book celebrates the career of Steinweiss, now 92, who revolutionized the way music was packaged and marketed. As Columbia Records’ first art director, he created colorful, whimsical combinations of illustration and typography that helped to boost album sales for the likes of Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter, and Henny Goodman, while breathing new life into the works of classical composers with albums covers he approached like vibrant miniature posters. In addition to Steinweiss’ personal recollections and previously unpublished work, the book includes an essay by design historian Steven Heller and a foreword by Grammy Award-winning art director Kevin Reagan.