by Emi ly St
erneman
Saul Bass - “Nine Hours to Rama� movie poster; edited
saul bass
WHY DOES MAN CREATE? This is not only a question that runs through the minds of people everywhere, but also the title to Saul Bassʼs 1968 animated short film that won an Oscar. This is a question that I especially as a designer think about a lot. Creation is a major aspect of my field and what ultimately drives the human race to progress. Saul Bass accomplished great progression and ingenuity in the fields of graphic design and film in his life. Bass was born in 1920 in Bronx, New York and died in 1996. During his life his major and most famous contributions to design happed around 1950-1980 and after during the post-modern period. After high school Bass attended Brooklyn College and the Art Students League and started a career in free-lance graphic design.
Saul Bass - “West Side Story” movie poster; edited
SYMBOLS & LOGOS Bell Systems - 1969
One of Saul Bassʼs first logo designs was for Bell Systems, this is probably one of his more famous logo designs and is still used today. According to AT&T, “the Bell System redesgin was the largest corporate re-identity program in the U.S., ever.” The re-design simplified the existing logo design, keeping the original idea but removing a lot of the details and the words “ Bell System” in the center of the bell.
AT&T - 1983
Years after AT&T adopted Saul Bassʼs infamous Bell Systems logo they asked him to come up for an AT&T design. Today, AT&T keeps the same idea and design of Saul Bass but adopts it to their needs and space. The colors and design are still used if changed at all. The globe logo is symbolic of AT&T in all of itʼs forms. AT&T, even though they redesigned this logo in 2005, call it the foundation for what the company uses today.
Girl Scouts of America - 1978
Saul Bass originally designed this trifold logo, though it has been redesigned in 2010, many people are not a fan of the new “awkward” design. The new design incorporates a “nose job” and “an awkward tuf of bangs” according to Stephanie Murg, branding blogger. This iconic trio has been the symbol of Girl Scouts of America for years and appears on uniforms and patches of girl scouts around the country.
MOVIE POSTER DESIGN
What led Bass to his most famous work and stages of his career were his movie poster designs. He designed posters in a way that revolutionized the movie poster industry. In my point of view, bass took the concept of a logo and how it summarizes and conceptualizes a companyʼs thoughts, aims, and ideas into one simplified design and tried to do the same for each movie. Saul Bass - “Vertigo” movie poster
Saul Bass - “The Man with the Golden Arm” movie poster
Instead of doing what was done in the past, which is place some opposing characters juxtaposition, he would design graphics or typography that embodied the mood of the entire movie to give people glancing at the poster a feel for how the movie will be.
Saul Bass - “Anatomy of a Murder” movie poster
The Movie Later in Bassʼs life, he created the Oscar winning film, “Why Does Man Create?” which I mentioned earlier. Even though this short, partially animated, partially live-action film was not one of his most well-known works, to me, it summarizes his life, his journey through creation and graphic design, and even later the transition of that to film. The film is laid out in sections that highlight the process a designer, engineer, or anyone goes through in the creation process. He uses these steps in order to narrate why he believes people design. It shows what people have created throughout history to get to where we are today uses his famous technique of summarizing an idea in a few short minutes. Then, as I interpreted it, goes on to show staged clips mixed with animations that emphasized trying, failing, progressing, regressing, digressing, failing again and again, and finally what you get out of this entire process. Sometimes you have a fantastic idea and nothing good comes out of it no matter how hard you try. Sometimes you have no ideas and a brilliant one comes to you while youʼre sitting there eating an apple. Sometimes you think you have a wonderful idea and it seems like the entire world hates it. As Bass shows, these are the hardships and struggles that come with creativity and design, but hopefully in the end it is all worth it. I can relate greatly to this video, which is probably why I liked it so much. It puts together Bassʼs career and his progression perfectly. Saul Bass - “Why Man Creates” screen shot
Saul Bass - “Psycho” title sequence screen shots
From movie poster design, Bass began his most famous work in movie title animation. Preminger, after seeing his poster for “Carmen Jones” was so impressed that he hired Bass on to do the title sequence for his movie “The Man with the Golden Arm.” The title sequence: previously a time to go fetch some popcorn was now a time in which the mood, feeling, and overall story of the movie was wrapped up and summarized for the audience. The title sequence was changed forever because of Bass. It turned into a scene to prepare the audience for the movie ahead.
MOVIE TITLES
In interviews of Bass, he mostly describes his work as a graphic artist in film and how he progressed in his work in film sequences to better engage the viewer and preview and describe what is to come. As he has many famous works, I will just describe a few. “The Man with the Golden Arm” is a movie by Otto Preminger about a man struggling with a heroin addiction. Bass decided that in order to portray the struggle of this man, he would create a graphic title sequence with harsh lines that to me resemble needles, surrounding the typographic names and other information. He symbolized the movie in a black paper cut out of an arm with jagged edges that look painfully twisted, summarizing the mood and storyline of the film perfectly. From there, there was his title sequence for “Psycho” in which he used lines and broken, disjointed, and split words to portray the mental state of the main character. I think he uses typography excellently to portray the mood of the movie to come to the viewers.
Saul Bass - “The Man with the Golden Arm” title sequence screen shots
Saul Bass - “Stalag 17� movie poster; edited
Published by Purdue University Typefaces used: Hitchcock, Helvetica, Uptown Programs used: Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign