“Alex Steinweiss: The Inventor of the Modern Album Cover” Book

Esquire UK turns of onto the historical importance of Alex Steinweiss through this new book from Taschen. “Compiled by artist Kevin Reagan, Alex Steinweiss: The Inventor of the Modern Album Cover explores the work of the man who, upon being appointed Columbia Records’ 23-year-old art director in 1940, had a light bulb moment. All those brown paper packaged albums are a bit ugly, he thought, so why not jazz them up?… A few months after designing the world’s first album art (for Smash Song Hits by songwriting duo Rodgers and Hart), Steinweiss had increased Columbia’s record sales by over 800%. The bigwigs thought he might be onto something.”

Available from Amazon.