Saul Bass
Works of a Great American Designer
[Then called visual arts] During the 40 years of his design career, he worked alongside a great many of the greatest filmmakers and producers Hollywood had to offer. These included great names such as Stanley Kubrick, Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock, and many more of Hollywood’s greatest. In addition to his work in film, Saul Bass’s work extended to many corporate identity projects where some of the most notable company logos were created and remained unchanged for many years.
It was the legacy that Bass created for himself that gained him the renown of being one of the most influential designers during the twentieth century and modernist era.
Born in New York City in 1920 Saul Bass started working in art and design at an early age. When he reached his college years in 1936, Bass took part-time evening classes at the Art Students League. During this time he worked for an advertising agency in New York where one of his early assignments at the agency was printing out movie posters designed for Warner Brothers movies; [36 years later he would come to design the ever iconic logo for Warner Brothers worldwide]. After his time at the Art Student League, Bass found a position working for the well-known advertisement agency Blaine Thompson Company. It was alongside this time of working for Blaine Thompson that he moved onto taking art classes at Brooklyn College in 1944 where he cultivated his natural skill in art and design under the teaching of GyĂśrgy Kepes. Kepes was sought out by Bass for mentorship as Bass held him in high regard for his reputation and works in the Visual arts field as a teacher, painter, designer, and art theorist. (Seddon 135)
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During his time at Brooklyn College Bass was guided by György Kepes to focus his ideas and designs on modernism , psychology and the social responsibility of designers. It was in these studies at Brooklyn College that Bass was “arguably influenced by Kepes’s views on the connections between graphic design and films.” (Seddon 134) Through his influence Bass finished his studies at Brooklyn College and moved on to work for the Buchannan and Company after being offered a job by them. It was here that he began his time in Hollywood working with printed ads for the company’s clients such as Paramount Pictures and TWA (Trans World Airlines). He quickly found himself working on designs for Chevrons and liveries for aircraft tails. He also worked on several projects which included poster designs for Chaplin’s: Monsieur Verdoux, as well as covers for magazines such as Art & Architecture. It was during this period working for Buchannan and Company that his career began to gain momentum. Though a truly great graphic designer he is best known for his works with film title sequences. Up until this point in the 1950’s the majority of film titles were simple single pane images that displayed the relevant information of the title, director, and actors. It was something to be projected over the curtains and titles had tended to be lists of dull credits, mostly ignored, endured, or used as popcorn time.” (The Academy). No real attention was payed to the films until the curtains were drawn up and the film itself directly began. Saul Bass changed this with the addition of motion and design into the titles creating a sequence for the title information and notable names. It was in these sequences that he was masterful at conveying and preparing the audience for the atmosphere, and sometimes the plot outline, of the film they were about to watch.
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Two of the most notable designs that started Bass’s work in film and works with title sequences were the films Carmen Jones and The Man with the Golden Arm. It was on these film projects that Bass worked along side Otto Preminger during the height of the modernist movement.
In these films both sought to create something new and effective for a solution to the films title panes. Bass explains how natural the progression toward the kinetic typography was in their designs, in an interview with Herbert Yager. When asked how the idea first came about to work with animating title into a sequenced scene Bass related; I began as a graphic designer. As part of my work,
I created film symbols for ad campaigns. I happened to be working on the symbols for Otto Preminger’s Carmen Jones and The Man with the Golden Arm and at some point, Otto and I just looked at each other and said, “Why not make it move?� It was as simple as that. I had felt for some time that audience involvement with a film should begin with its first frame. (Bass, Bass on Titles)
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Bass’s work with The Man with the Golden Arm is especially iconic in design as it was one of the first film title sequences created and it brought a new aspect of design to the film industry. The Man with the Golden Arm was a controversial topic in the 1950’s as its overtones on drug addiction was taboo to many. Bass worked to captivate this feeling and in his film ads and title sequence he brought to life a design that was deceptively simple but captured the feel and tones of both the movie and the cultures views on the taboo nature of drug addiction. The film was about drug addiction. The symbol — the arm — in its jagged form expressed the disjointed, jarring existence of the drug addict. To the extent that it was an accurate and telling synthesis of the film in the ad campaign, those same qualities came with it into the theater and with the addition of motion and sound it really came alive and set up the mood and texture of the film. (Bass, Bass on Titles)
It was this art of prefacing a film that Bass created a mastery over in his film title sequences. He looked closely at what the film’s settings, mood, message, and purpose was in order to create a seamlessly integrated title sequence. It was from the modernist ideas of making things new and changing the traditional ways of doing things that Bass’s title sequences became a reality. In his design, he continued this mastery of the title design and message of the various film projects during his 40 year career. He designed ads and title sequences for many notable films through the decades follow the 1950’s. His work brought “a new type of kinetic typography” (Age of Information: Saul Bass) He created this connection of title and film that had previously been unexplored. Working with various directors he sought to incorporate new methods and elements into his title sequences. Moving from a purely graphic device to live action early on in his career. (The Academy)
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In his works for the films In Harms Way and Seconds Bass coming to recognize the need for incorporating new elements and the live action aspect of films, brought a new aspect to the title sequences. It was in this time of play and discovery that the live action incorporated with the design for In Harms Way “opened a whole new world [for Bass]” Bass works with this idea and creates a simple and effective film ad with the gesturing arm of a sea captain to convey the setting of the movie. In the film’s title sequence he furthers this idea of the violent and ever changing nature of war by supporting the tittle and accreditations in front of scenes of violent waves in a tumultuous ocean. Creating the tension and conflict expected in the film.
Likewise, in his works for the film Seconds, Bass works again with the films plot and atmosphere to craft a complete image of the film shared between the printed film ads and the motion title sequence. In the film Seconds there is concept of human alterations and the complete reconstruction of a man’s body to eventually piece him together as a man 40 years younger. This eerie and unsettling plot was well displayed in Bass’s designs for the film ads which incorporated is strive for “simple, Direct ideas” (Bass, Bass on Titles) by crating the skinless figure of a man in a press mold. This feeling of uneasiness was further accentuated in his final title sequence for the film where he combined the live action film of various parts of the human body that he warped and altered in film. All this worked together to form a precursor for what was to come in the film.
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Bass continued his pattern of visually simple yet captivating designs in his working on the films Vertigo, Big Country, Walk on The Wild Side, West Side story, Grand Prix, and many more. Of these films Bass had differed in his approach with the film Walk on the Wild Side. It was different in both content and atmosphere than the rest. Its darker and serious tones of the street life of New Orleans pushed Bass’s to consider the use of common place items and sights and create a new sense of wonder. “I came to grips with what I think is the most challenging aspect of any creative endeavor. And that is deal with ordinary things, things that we know so well that we’ve ceased to see them; deal with them in a way that allows us to understand them anew — in a sense making the ordinary extraordinary. (The Academy) Bass worked with the simple and common visual of a cat to create a renewed sense of long lost view of cats. That sense of the strange, pervasive, and mysterious sense of wonder. And Bass works this feeling of the cat in masterfully with the view of the seedy and pervasive street life that Nelson Algren was portraying of New Orleans darker side.
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It was this point in Bass’s work that he had an ever growing interest in the filming process and his involvement on the film Grand Prix Stands out among the others in pushing the idea of the cinematic and live action in relation to the fast paced nature of the great races of the Grand Prix. During his work on the title sequence for the film, director John Frankenheimer adored Bass’s work and cinematography so much that he created the position and officially set Bass as the “Visual consultant” for the entire film. Bass’s work on the film Grand Prix was not limited to solely the film and visual consulting as he still crafted his masterful works on creating a consistent and accurate telling of the films setting and atmosphere in his film ads and title sequence, Both focusing on the fast paced and calculated nature of the professional race course and the film. However it was through the work in this film that Bass’s work began to shift from the Title Sequences he had created and perfected. He found himself interested in the film production and directing. From this point he worked on few films as a visual consulting until the 1980’s when he had an entire 10 years without any title sequence or film ad designs. Yet he was not inactive during that time. Bass redirected his work toward the creation of many of his own short films, documentaries, and even a full feature film.
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In this interim time period Bass also continued his secondary work in logo and branding design. It was during this time in the late 1960’s thru 1990’s that his work in logo design brought to life many of his great and notable logo designs for many worldwide companies and organizations. In these designs he continued his philosophy that he carried with him in his film works and sought to find the simple, direct ideas that conveyed the meaning and atmosphere of the company or organization. His work in this area created some of the most iconic and recognizable brands such as the DIXIE logo in 1969, Quaker Oats in 1971, United Way in 1972, Girl Scouts of America in 1978, AT&T globe in 1983, and a dozen other branding logos for many of North America’s most recognizable corporate identities.
Throughout the twentieth century there were countless works that can be traced back to Saul Bass’s genius in design, his craftsmanship can be seen in virtually every area of design during that time. “Saul Bass is one of the best examples of a mid-century modern designer that somehow had the ability to turn his hand to just about anything…” (Seddon 135) In film advertisements, opening title sequences, posters, trailers, epilogues, books, film creation, branding and corporate identity Bass’s works was always able to capture the required amount of detail and information and translate it into a truly simple and effective work of communication and design.
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Resources Age of Information: Saul Bass. 2017. Web Site. 27 September 2017. <www.historygraphicdesign.com/the-age-of-information/the-new-york-school/182-saul-bass>. All about Saul Bass. 8 September 2008. Web Site. 1 October 2017. <www.logodesignlove.com/all-about-saul-bass>. Annyas, Christian. Saul Bass Logo Design: Then and Now. n.d. <http://annyas.com/saul-bass-logo-design-then-now/>. Bass on Titles. Dir. Saul Bass. Perf. Saul Bass. 1977. 04 October 2017. <www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKu6EVKiNbg>. Bass, Saul. 20 Outstanding Los Angeles Designers Archie Boston. 1986. Web Source. <www.youtube.com/ watch?v=i-WzF-XBILw&list=PLFB60350F08D8B406&index=1>. Bass, Saul. AT&T Logo. 1 October 2017. <http://logok.org/att-logo/>. French, Philip. Saul Bass: A Life in Film & Design by Jennifer Bass and Pat Kirkham â&#x20AC;&#x201C; review. 29 October 2011. Web Site. 1 October 2017. <www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/oct/30/saul-bass-life-film-review>. Miller, Eric. Key Moments in Graphic Design History: A Timeline of Events That Shaped Modern Design. 29 January 2017. Web site. 5 October 2017. <www.thoughtco.com/key-moments-in-graphic-design-history-1697527>. Saul Bass Poster Archive. 5 Dec 2013. Web Site. 05 October 2017. <www.saulbassposterarchive.com/gallery/film-posters/>. Seddon, Tony. Twentieth Century Design: . Hove, England: Quid Publishing , 2014. Book. The Academy. Saul Bass On His Approach To Designing Movie Title Sequences. 21 October 2015. Web Source: Interview Transcript. 2 October 2017. <www.medium.com/art-science/saulbass-on-his-approach-to-designing-movie-title-sequences-47fd537c457b>. Webb, Poul. Art & Artists. 10 August 2015. Web Site. 07 October 2017.