The Genius Behind Your Favorite Book Covers
Legendary designer Paul Bacon died earlier this month at his home in Beacon, NY. You may not recognize his name but you definitely know his work—Bacon designed book covers for modern classics like Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse-Five.
His covers weres bold and distinctive, often featuring a large title and a small image. In 2004, Stephen Heller told Print magazine that, "when you look at Bacon's jackets en masse, you realize that you're looking at a history of late-20th century commercial book cover design.”
Bacon got his start designing album covers. He was a massive jazz fan and worked for jazz magazines and labels like Blue Note and Riverside Records. He first designed a book cover as a favor to a friend’s father—publishing house Simon & Schuster took notice of his work and requested several more.
He continued to devote himself to jazz—performing every Tuesday night for over 20 years as a jazz vocalist at The Cajun, a New Orleans-inspired bar in New York City. He also released two albums, the most recent in 2002.
Bacon ended up designing covers over 6,000 covers in fifty years. Each book took him a few weeks—time enough to read, reflect and draw. He turned in a single draft of his vision to the publisher but he was not a diva—he was happy to revise until all parties were satisfied.
Bacon told Print magazine, “If people didn’t like something about a Cole Porter tune, Porter just tore it up. And I did the same thing with the jackets.”
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