I took a look at Paul Bacon, who designed my favorite book, Catch-22! I was sad to learn he died recently - just last month!
A bit about Mr. Bacon from his LA Times Obit:
"If a book cover is a canvas, Bacon was its Matisse or Dali, who used minimal imagery and bold lettering to sell such iconic novels as Joseph Heller's "Catch-22," Ken Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and Philip Roth's "Portnoy's Complaint."
"He made a career out of dressing the most popular books of a particular age and you know those books in your mind's eyes because of those jackets," said Steven Heller, a New York-based historian of illustration.
Heller, for many years art director of the New York Times Book Review, described Bacon as perhaps the inventor of the bestseller jacket and the style that became known as the "Big Book Look."
Bacon, who designed more than 6,000 book jackets and was also a jazz singer, musician and noted designer of record album covers for Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie and other jazz masters, died June 8 after a stroke in Fishkill, N.Y., said his son, Preston. He was 91.
--------
Here is a tumbler of his designs; below are some of his most well known.
[Sorry for the late post, I'm having serious internet issues at home and had to wait until I was back on campus!]