Edelmann died in a hospital in Stuttgart, Germamy. His daughter, Valentine, told the New York Times the cause of death was heart disease and kidney failure.

Edelmann was born in the former Czechoslovakia and graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Düsseldorf, Germany.

“Yellow Submarine” is based on the Beatles’ music, with the film’s title hailing from the 1966 song of the same name. The tune, written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney and featuring Ringo Starr on lead vocals, first appeared on Revolver and then on the soundtrack to the film.

Edelmann worked as the art director of the film, creating an escapist, whimsical paradise under the sea inhabited by Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in a battle of good vs. evil against the music-hating Blue Meanies.

“He became famous because of his work on ‘Yellow Submarine,’ ” said the graphic designer Milton Glaser, a friend, according to the NY Times. “But that celebrity actually obscured his real talent and imagination.”

He also worked as an advertising and editorial illustrator in Germany, England and the Netherlands, creating posters for a radio station, editorial illustrations for a teen magazine and visual essays for a national German newspaper.

Edelmann designed book covers such as the first German edition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” as well as the mascot for Seville’s Expo 1992 world fair.

Edelmann’s illustration of a pudgy bird with a rainbow plume and a conical beak beat out 23 other entries in a 1989 competition to design Seville’s Expo 1992 mascot.

He taught design at Stuttgart Academy of Art and Design until 1999.

Click here for the New York Times article.