Alex Steinweiss - Album Cover Guru

Alex Steinweiss is credited with creating what we think of as the modern album cover. As art director for Columbia Records during the 1940’s, he revolutionized the way records were packaged and marketed.

There's a new book available on his work called Alex Steinweiss: The Inventor of the Modern Album Cover. You can order it from William Stout Books.

His first cover was for a 1939 collection of songs by Rodgers and Hart. It features a theater marquee with the composers’ names spelled out in lights.

Steinweiss was born in 1917 and is still alive and working in Sarasota, Florida.