This one’s for inothernews: ”Before Alex Steinweiss invented the album cover in 1938, at the age of 23, all albums came in plain brown wrappers,” the synopsis of the graphic designer’s biography says. “That simple idea revolutionized the record business and spawned an entire new field of illustration-album cover art-that is now inseparable.” I did a paper on Alex Steinweiss for one of my classes, and found him to be one of my biggest design inspirations in college. He’s up there with Paul Rand and Saul Bass for me. — Ernie @ SFB