Thanks to Quillblog I got to hear about Covering Photography, a site that indexes book covers with photographs (as opposed to abstract book covers or those with paintings, illustrations, etc.) It’s available at http://idesweb.bc.edu/baden/covering_photography.html . The site contains hundreds of book covers with photographs, browsable by date, photographer (Laurie Anderson??), publisher, author, or designer. You can also search. I found browsing by publication date to be the most fun. Book listings contain large versions of the cover, information on the design/author/publisher/etc. and often commentary. The cover for the 1976 publication of The Big Kiss-Off of 1944 was not a photograph per se but the commentary noted from which photograph elements on the cover had come, and where that photograph could be found. Very impressive.

I’m not a designer per se but I am continually fascinated by book design. The collection of covers here has sparked my brain.