George Salter (1897–1967) was arguably the leading American book jacket designer from the time he arrived in the United States in 1934, following a forced emigration from Nazi Germany, until his death in 1967. He had already been one of the most influential jacket designers in Weimar Germany, a period rich in innovative book covers. For all of their inventiveness and variety, Salter's German jackets lacked a defining aesthetic. Some are expressionistic, some are classical; some are illustrated while others are photographic; and others rely solely on type, hand lettering or calligraphy. In contrast, Salter's American jackets—especially after 1940—relied on a combination of illustration and calligraphy. His calligraphy, in service to the emotional aspects of a book, was idiosyncratic and unpredictable. This talk will look at the role that calligraphy played in Salter's jacket designs and trace its evolution from the 1930s to the 1960s.