4 Authors — How to Distinguish Their Posts

I’m using WordPress 2.0. I’m using the default theme.

The blog I’m launching has four authors. I want authorship of each article to be clear and distinctive. Of course each author can sign their posts from within the article, but I want something more consistant and automated. My ideas so far are:

1. Author’s nickname would show up in the article title. For instance in Comments, the nickname of the writer automatically appears.
2. How about a small uniqe graphic that would appear in the title with each author.
3. Finally, as an alternative, or as an addition — is this a good use of categories? Each article would be assigned to a category that is the name of the author. (I know how to do this, I just don’t know if it is a good idea.)

Any other ideas?

If 1 and 2 are possible, I don’t know how to do them and would like to know.

Thanks for your thoughts and help.

Shai