SAUL BASS (Deepend Design Limited, 1999/2010) SAUL BASS (1920-1996) was not only one of the great graphic designers of the mid-20th century but the undisputed master of film title design thanks to his collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger and Martin Scorsese. Saul Bass was born in America in year 1920 and he died in 1668. He was a graphic designer and filmmaker. He is most recognized for his motion picture title sequences design. He has even worked for Hollywood’s greatest filmmakers. For example, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick or Martin Scorcese. Probably his most famous work are the paper cut-out of a heroin addicts arm. He did that piece for The Man with the Golden Arm. According to Neef et al. (2006) Scorcese said about Bass ‘It has been a dream of mine to work with Saul Bass ever since I tried to capture his style in my own “imaginary” movie titles which I drew at ages 12 and 15 in a composition book I kept hidden at home. He designed some logos as well. AtandT Bell System logo or Continental Airlines logo are just two of many he did.

fig.1 The Man with the Golden Arm - animated paper cutout of a heroin addict's arm - 1955

He was born in May 8, in New York. He started his studies at the Art Students League, it is an art school in New York City which is interesting not because of its quality, but as well because they have no degree programs or grades. Then he moved on and started to attend Gyorgy Kepes classes at Brooklyn College. His first bigger success was during period when he worked in Hollywood as a printer for film ads. Once he was working with Otto Preminger and when Otto saw his film poster work he was impressed and asked him to do the title sequence. This was like an open door and it was up to Bass to go in or close them. He didn’t close them at all, he realized how important and valuable are the opening and closing sequences of a movie. Not many people pay attention to titles. It is getting better nowadays thanks to improved animation techniques which can make them more interesting. But I think especially opening titles are very important to give you the feeling about the movie. Titles are and will be always underestimated. You don’t go to the cinema to watch the titles, you want to see the movie, your favorite artist and what will happened and titles are just the barrier. But once you make them entertaining or somehow interesting it can change. Not many of them are like that.

fig.4 AT&T logo - Saul Bass - 1984

I already talked about The Man with Golden Arm. To understand the title sequence you should know what the film is about, so here is the story: Jazz musician is heroin addicted, he is locked up and he gets clean, but when he gets out of the prison he has a really hard time to stay clean. For That time period it was very controversial film. It us usual to talk about drug addiction now, but it wasnt and the difference between now and then is so huge, that the Motion Picture Association of America refused to certify the film, but that is a different story. In the sequence he used hand, because it is the main tool for drug addicted person. He has done so many title sequences that it would take a while to write them all in here, so here are some of the most interesting ones: North by Northwest, Psycho or Casino. As you could read according to Kamp and Lawrence (2006) that his strikingly imaginative title sequences introduced dozens of films, including some of the best by Otto Preminger (Anatomy of a Murder), Alfred Hitchock (Vertigo), and Martin Scorcese (Goodfellas), and, in some cases, were more memorable than the films themselves (Edward Dmytryk’s Walk on the Wild Side, Scorcese’s Casino). A Snob controversy rages over the extent of his involvement in Psycho’s shower scene- some swear he actually directed it, whole others say just drew the storyboards-and hard-core Bassists extol his sole feature as director, Phase 4 (1974), an impenetrable sci-fi story about superintelligent ants.

fig.3 Minolta logo - Saul Bass - 1978

His creativity was spread all over the commercial design field. He didn’t just stick with title sequences, another work he has done are some very famous logo. According to Heskett (2005) the design practice of Saul Bass was built on the twin poles of film publicity and corporate logos. It is actually sad, that we usually know just the logo. And if we really like it we just usually search what does that certain company does, but nobody cares about the author. Do you know who has made Bell Telephone, AtandT globe Continental Airlines, Dixie, Minolta,Frontier Airlines logos? Sean Bass did, but nobody really knows and that might be a good thing, because in this industry you will probably know someone who has done something really bad, but not vice versa.

 

fig.5 Anatomy of a murder screenshot - opening sequence titles - Saul Bass

The Los Angeles Society of Contemporary Designers is an organization he was part of. According to Drew and Sternberger (2005) de Harak was a founding member, along with Lustig, Saul Bass and others, of the Los Angeles Society of Contemporary Designers. De Harak remembered being struck by both the content-consciousness of Bass.  Nourmand (2003/2007) Saul Bass died in 1996, in Los Angeles, leaving behind a flourishing design empire with Bass Yager Associates, and a heritage which will continue to inspire creative designers and film-makers.

To be honest, I don’t like that much his work. I can see the intellectual connection between the titles and movies. He uses nice visual appearance which fits the movie. You get the feeling what is the movie about from the titles. So technically it seems perfect. It just doesn’t impress me much.

REFERENCES:

Internet

Deepend Design Limited (1999/2010) SAUL BASS. Available at: http://designmuseum.org/design/saul-bass (Accessed: 25 November 2010).

Nourmand, T. (2003/2007) SAUL BASS. Available at: http://www.saul-bass.com/ (Accessed: 25 November 2010).

Books

Neef, S. (ed), Ketelaar, E. (ed), Dijck, J. (ed) (2006) Sign Here! : Handwriting in the Age of New Media. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Kamp, D., Lawrence, L. (2006) Film Snob’s Dictionary : An Essential Lexicon of Filmological Knowledge. United States of America: Broadway Books.

Heskett, J. (2005) Design: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.

Drew, N., Sternberg, P. (2005) By its Cover : Modern American Book Cover Design. New York: Princeton Architectual Press.

Images

fig.1 Martin, D. (2002/2010) The Man with the Golden Arm. Available at: http://www.areaofdesign.com/americanicons/bass.htm (Accessed: 28 November 2010).

fig.2 Verstappen, H. (1999/2010) Saul Bass. Available at: http://www.thelooniverse.com/movies/west/saulbass/saulbass.html (Accessed: 28. November 2010.

fig.3 Verstappen, H. (1999/2010) Minolta. Available at: http://www.thelooniverse.com/movies/west/saulbass/logos.html (Accessed: 28. November 2010.

fig.4 Verstappen, H. (1999/2010) AT&T. Available at:http://www.thelooniverse.com/movies/west/saulbass/logos.html (Accessed: 28. November 2010.

fig.5 Bushell, D. (2004/2010) All about the Old School. Available at: http://dbushell.com/2010/01/06/all-about-the-old-school/ (Accessed: 28 November 2010).