When I first entered publishing (and we can get the Rosetta Stone jokes over right now), there was such a thing as the "lettering jacket": Penguin often did 'em, as did Gollancz, and most other publishers fell back on them on occasion. The "lettering jacket" was, obviously, one that had no illustration at all; any design effort had gone into the typography, although even then (a) there might be a series style that obviated the need for much typographical thought for each new title, and (b) for standalones, quite often there was no real need for much typographical enterprise because really all the potential buyers/readers wanted to know was title, author, and perhaps subject.

The two companies I've mentioned had extraordinary success with their "lettering jackets", and the editions published thus are often still the ones preferred by readers: would you rather have, say, the old green Penguin edition, typography only, of Margery Allingham's The Tiger in the Smoke or a more recent edition with a photographically rendered aghast babe on the front? I only ask.