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Saul bass was an innovated designer that greatly influenced the graphic design community as well as the film industry. His most influential designs were made during the 1950s, which was his start in corporate identity and film sequences.1 His style was considered modernist for his time, especially his film sequences he created. Saul Bass’s style is unique and all it’s own due to the rough and unpolished looks but also his way of transforming ordinary objects into art.

There were many people that influenced Bass and his design like his teacher Gyorgy

Kepes but also by his own mother and father as well.2 Saul Bass has greatly influenced graphic design not only through creating iconic corporate identity logos but by also launching graphic design in the film industry through the use of title sequences.

Saul Bass from the beginning of high school knew he wanted to create living art from one his friend’s uncle who painted massive wall fronts when a movie opened.3 Bass never went to college, until his later years, because he was living during the depression era and his family needed him to work to support the family.

Although since Bass won a scholarship it entitled him to one class per week for six months at the Art Students League. After finishing his classes he earned two jobs that related to commercial art being a label designer and working for a photo-offset plant. He started at a small commercial art studio where he would design trade ads

1 Airey, David. “Saul Bass: A Life in Film & Design.” David Airey. November 11, 2011.

2 Pat King and Jennifer Bass. Saul Bass. Laurence King Publishing Ltd, 2011

3 Ibid., 5.

Wong 2 for United Artists. His life however drastically changed when he was able to open

Saul Bass Associates where all of his most prominent designs arose.4

Saul Bass was greatly versatile in his talents, as a graphic designer, animator, photographer and film director.5 He created great film sequences but also lasting corporate identities through his personal style. Bass’s approach to design was not considered mindless; his designs are created and made because there is a purpose.

The designs that he created are meant as a solution to understanding a particular problem. Most of the time in his creations of film title sequences, Bass would try to find a strong graphic symbol that would act as a summary for the plot of the movie.

Bass believed that film titles were made

to set the mood for the film’s story.6 He

also believed that in his design process, as

a modernist, that it is possible to not have

a layered and complex piece visually but

instead arrive at a single visual essence.7

Bass’s personal design style is not particularly focused on the prim and proper of visual aesthetics. Most of his work is usually considered to be “graphically

4 Pat King and Jennifer Bass. Saul Bass. Laurence King Publishing Ltd, 2011.

5 Alliance graphique International edited by Bos, Ben and Bos, Elly. AGI: graphic design since 1950. London: Thames & Hudson, 2007.

6 Saul Bass and Pamela Haskin. Saul Can You Make Me A Title? Film Quarterly 50, no. 1 (1996): 12-13.

7 Robert McG and Thomas Jr. “Saul Bass, 75, Designer, Dies; Made Art Out of Movie Titles.” The New York Times. April 27, 1996.

Wong 3 arresting, it’s also irritatingly imprecise…”8 Although this is considered so, Saul Bass creates a personal style that is thought invoking and storytelling. His personal style and design were also considered as witty and ingenious.9 This was due to the ability to put an image to music and superimposing, collaging, and cutting his own designs.

One example of his handmade cutout designs is the title sequence to Catch Me If You

Can.10 Here the viewers can also see his personal style of incorporating reduced graphic shapes, that goes along with his design process.11

The first thing that majorly influenced his design work was his mother who is described as having a gift for storytelling.12 His father, who was a furrier, taught

Bass how to use his hands and visual sensibilities, also influenced him.13 His teacher

Gyorgy Kepes influenced the basic elements of designs.14 Kepes also taught Bass to understand the unity of opposites and physical modulation of light.15 Gyorgy Kepes was an author of the revolutionary graphic primer and taught Bauhaus ideas and

8 Andrew Lambirth. Saul Bass. The Spectator, Aug 28, 2004. 39-40, (accessed September 22, 2014).

9 Alice Rawsthrone. “The Man Who Made the Title Sequence Into a Film Star.” The New York Times. November 26th, 2011.

10 Will Perkins. “” Art of the Title. August 22, 2011.

11 Rick Poynor, Saul Bass, a life in pictures. Creative Review, 2011, 39-48.

12 Pat King and Jennifer Bass. Saul Bass. Laurence King Publishing Ltd, 2011.

13 Robert McG and Thomas Jr. “Saul Bass, 75, Designer, Dies; Made Art Out of Movie Titles.” The New York Times. April 27, 1996

14 Jim Supanick. "Saul Bass: "...to Hit the Ground Running..."." Film Comment 33, no. 2 (Mar, 1997): 72- 77, 75 (accessed September 18, 2014).

15 Pat King and Jennifer Bass. Saul Bass. Laurence King Publishing Ltd, 2011. Wong 4 methods to Bass specifically in his film and print designs.16 This is why Bass was also influenced by the Russian Constructivist typography and Bauhaus design theory that is featured in most of his designs.

Saul Bass greatly influenced film titles and corporate designs. One of his colleagues, described Bass’s film titles as “…not simply unimaginative ‘identification tags’ as in many films but rather, they are integral to the film as a whole”.17 Some of his corporate designs have been used and recognized

like AT&T and United Airlines but have since been

tweaked. Although when United Airlines hired

Pentagram to redesign their logo Pentagram decided

that they could not because it was already perfection.18

Either way his design styles had lasting impressions on film sequences and to corporate identities.

Most people agree that Saul Bass has influenced the graphic design community greatly through his corporate logos as well as his unique film sequences.

Some even have said that he has created a lasting legacy to leave our marks on the world. Since his passing even Google has created a doodle for him, featured on the front page, on what would be his 93rd birthday as a tribute to his work. It is said that

16 Emily King, A Century of Movie Posters from Silent to Art House. Barron’s Educational Seriea Inc: Octopus Publishing Group Ltd, 2003.

17 Martin Scorsese. “Martin Scorsese on the talent of Saul Bass.” The Telegraph. October 30, 2011.

18 David J. Unger, “How Saul Bass Changed Design.” The Christian Science Monitor. May 8, 2013.

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Saul Bass did not just invent his own graphic art form but that he has seized it.19 In the Google Doodle it features some of the best works that Saul Bass designed, mostly consisting of his most famous film sequences like Anatomy of Murder, Vertigo, The

Man With The Golden Arm, and etc.20 His work was greatly influential to film and the title sequences that created an emotional ties to the audience even before the movie began. His corporate logos also left as lasting mark as one of the greatest studios refused to redesign a logo due to its perfectness. Overall the amazing graphic work that Saul Bass has designed has lead to a lasting legacy on the graphic design community.

19 Michael Cavna, “SAUL BASS: From Hitchcock to Kubrick, Hollywood title-sequence pioneer celebrated with stylish video Google Doodle” The Washington Post.

20Andrew Pulver. “Saul Bass title sequences: ten of the best” The Guardian. May 8, 2013.

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Bibliography

Airey, David. “Saul Bass: A Life in Film & Design.” David Airey. November 11, 2011. http://www.davidairey.com/saul-bass-life-film-design/

David Airey looks and reviews over the Saul Bass: A Life in Film & Design that was and the contributions that Saul Bass had made in the film sequences and titles that transformed the genre along with other work like logos, and his work before like his photography of the American Postwar.

Alliance graphique International edited by Bos, Ben and Bos, Elly. AGI: graphic design since 1950. London: Thames & Hudson, 2007.

The book contains a list of graphic designers and features Saul Bass. It gives a brief biography of Saul Bass and gives examples of his most famous works. The AGI: graphic design since 1950 also showcases his designs in Vertigo, The Man with the Golden Arm, and the . It discusses how Bass changed the approach to movie titles and lists his achievements he accomplished in his life.

Bass, Saul & Haskin, Pamela. “Saul Can You Make Me A Title?” Film Quarterly 50, no. 1 (1996): 10-17. Accessed September 16, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1213323

This is an interview with Saul Bass discussing his artistic signature that he made on the film industry. It relates to how Saul Bass’s images or title sequences are not just unimaginative but in a way an identification of the movie. The interview also explains his work experiences with film director Otto. Also the reason why he began making titles sequences for movies and process he goes through to make the title sequence in The Man with the Golden Arm.

Cavna, Michael. “SAUL BASS: From Hitchcock to Kubrick, Hollywood title-sequence pioneer celebrated with stylish video Google Doodle” The Washington Post. May 8th, 2013. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/comic-riffs/post/saul-bass-google-doodle- celebrates-hollywood-title-sequence-pioneer-with-must-see- stylishvideo/2013/05/08/f9cbf80c-b780-11e2-aa9e-a02b765ff0ea_blog.html

In this Washington Post article it talks about the Google Doodle that was created commemorating Saul Bass’s death. The Google Doodle was released on what would be his 93rd birthday with a video that showcased his famous works. The intention of the Google Doodle was to also showcase the deeper involvement of just watching the Doodle but to feel and think about why he did the design as he did it.

King, Emily. A Century of Movie Posters from Silent to Art House. Barron’s Educational Seriea Inc: Octopus Publishing Group Ltd, 2003. Wong 7

The book states a small biography of Saul Bass’s life like where he has studied and how he came into contact with European Modernist design ideas. How he started as a freelance designer, moving, and opening his own associate. The book also showcases some of the movie poster designs he created and a little behind the elements in the poster.

Lambirth, Andrew. Saul Bass. The Spectator, Aug 28, 2004. 39-40, (accessed September 22, 2014). http://search.proquest.com/docview/201174607?accountid=27975

This article talks about how commissioned Saul Bass to design the advertising for his 1954 film Carmen Jones. The article talks about the symbol that Bass created for the film and the changes that he made to the symbol on Preminger’s suggestion. Which was to animate the image of the flame on the rose. This sequence was his first title sequence he has ever done and would later win him an hour by the Director’s guild of America.

King, Pat and bass, Jennifer. Saul Bass. Laurence King Publishing Ltd, 2011.

This is a whole book dedicated to the work of Saul Bass that was written by one of his daughters Jennifer Bass. The book gives a biography of Saul Bass’s life and how he started as a renaissance designer moving into reinventing movies titles and later going into designing corporate identities. The whole book includes almost all of his works and what he has done for the graphic design community but the film and corporate community as well.

Perkins, Will. “Catch Me If You Can” Art of the Title. August 22, 2011. http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/catch-me-if-you-can/

Catch Me if You Can is a title sequence that was made by Saul Bass which plays out the story that is being told in the movie almost like a prologue. Florence Deygas and Oliver Kuntzel have a discussion/interview of the stylistically transposed handmade design sequence. After discussing the sequence and the work of Saul Bass they discuss what a collaborative process is like and what their favorite sequences were in the 1960s.

Poynor, Rick. 2011. "Saul Bass, a life in pictures." Creative Review 31, no. 11: 39-48. Art Source, EBSCOhost (accessed September 18, 2014).

The article talks about the design aspects of Saul Bass’s works but also showcases his design evolvement over time as a graphic designer. How Bass started and his ideals of what design was and should be. How he worked with other people and how his graphic design met the film industry. What he thought was useful of graphic design in film making and why it was important to his career.

Pulver, Andrew. “Saul Bass title sequences: ten of the best” The Guardian. May 8, 2013. http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2013/may/08/saul-bass-title-sequence- ten-best?CMP=EMCFLMEML1672

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This article written by Andrew Pulver discusses the top ten title sequences that Saul Bass has created. In the top ten are The Man with the Golden Arm, , Around the World in 80 Days, and more. Pulver discusses why these are the ten best and tone of each sequences and how Bass created them.

Rawsthrone, Alice. “The Man Who Made the Title Sequence Into a Film Star.” The New York Times. November 26th, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/07/arts/design/saul-bass-made-the-title- sequence-into-a-film-star.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

The New York Times article focuses on the movie titles and sequences that Saul Bass created with film directors like for “Vertigo” and how Martin Scorsese, a colleague of Bass, suggested that other films should have commissioned Bass for title sequences. Calling the designs witty and ingenious with more background/biography as how he started designing.

Robert McG, Thomas Jr. “Saul Bass, 75, Designer, Dies; Made Art Out of Movie Titles.” The New York Times. April 27, 1996. http://www.nytimes.com/1996/04/27/movies/saul-bass-75-designer-dies-made-art- out-of-movie- titles.html?n=Top%252FFeatures%252FMovies%252FNews%20and%20Features %252FObituaries

The New York Times discusses the death of the graphic designer Saul Bass and how he created art through his movie titles. The article then goes on to list his most famous title sequences and how he was creating memorable sequences. There is also some mention of his personal life to his first wide and his children, but also his father and his upcoming as a graphic designer.

Scorsese, Martin. “Martin Scorsese on the talent of Saul Bass.” The Telegraph. October 30, 2011. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-features/8855960/Martin-Scorsese-on- the-talent-of-Saul-Bass.html

Saul Bass’s good friend and colleague Martin Scorsese wrote this article discussing how he viewed Bass’s design before meeting him and after what it was like to work with him. It talks about the genius of Saul Bass’s design and when working with him how his ideas would instantly become special in that it wasn’t different from the movie but drew the viewers in.

Supanick, Jim. "Saul Bass: "...to Hit the Ground Running..."." Film Comment 33, no. 2 (Mar, 1997): 72-77, 75 (accessed September 18, 2014). http://search.proquest.com/docview/210260305?accountid=279

This article talks about how the author first viewed one of Saul Bass’s designs and how it affected him. How the design worked by drawing in his viewers and how diverse Saul Wong 9

Bass’s talents were in creating posters, photography, logos, and film titles. The technical resources he had and the advances or influence he left on the film industry and logo industry.

Unger, David J. “How Saul Bass Changed Design.” The Christian Science Monitor. May 8, 2013. http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Tech-Culture/2013/0508/How-Saul-Bass- changed-design

This article talks about how Saul Bass influenced and changed design itself. It talks about the corporate logos that he created and how well they were made. For example when Saul designed United Airlines logo and after awhile asked Pentagram to redesign the logo, Pentagram refused due to the perfection of the logo already, that they could not do any better than what was done already.