Who is he?
Saul Bass was an American graphic designer and won many Awards during his lifetime before passing in 1996 at the age of 75. Bass was well known for his excellent film sequences, posters and logos - with some of the brands he created them for being some of the most recognisable logos around; most notably AT&T (1969; 1983) and United Airlines (1974). Bass' work focuses on minimalistic typography combined with simple imagery and colours, and this small edits and creations he maintained throughout his life enables him to leave a legacy on the graphic world.
Success
One of the key elements to Bass' success is the title sequence he created for The Man with the Golden Arm (1955). The sequence featured a cut-out animation piece strictly in black and white and showed an arm which would represent a heroin addict. In one case, Bass described his sequences as "try to reach for a simple, visual phrase that tells you what the picture is all about and evokes the essence of the story", and his work is what enabled him to be known as a symbol of graphic design. Bass used a huge variety of film-making techniques for various short film, more commonly prologues for the project he would be working on - examples of this work is how he created prologues for a film stated to be centred around the middle of World War 2 (1942 est.); his prologue was shown to show the countries' developments between the two world wars, and therefore set the mood for the production.
Bass was rediscovered by producers James L. Brooks and Martin Scorsese who had grown up inspired by Bass' work. As a collaboration, Bass has created a variety of different film sequences for the two, with Casino (1995) being his last ever production.
Bass' legacy is in fact shown in more modern title sequences; mainly those whose stories' may be set in the 1960s. Some homages to Bass' work are featured in Catch Me If You Can (2002), X-Men: First Class (2011) and the AMC series Mad Men. Despite these films being created after Bass' passing, his work is still shown to be a recognisable feat in the history of graphic design, and this helped the evolution of graphic design in terms of society and culture.
Saul Bass was an American graphic designer and won many Awards during his lifetime before passing in 1996 at the age of 75. Bass was well known for his excellent film sequences, posters and logos - with some of the brands he created them for being some of the most recognisable logos around; most notably AT&T (1969; 1983) and United Airlines (1974). Bass' work focuses on minimalistic typography combined with simple imagery and colours, and this small edits and creations he maintained throughout his life enables him to leave a legacy on the graphic world.
Success
One of the key elements to Bass' success is the title sequence he created for The Man with the Golden Arm (1955). The sequence featured a cut-out animation piece strictly in black and white and showed an arm which would represent a heroin addict. In one case, Bass described his sequences as "try to reach for a simple, visual phrase that tells you what the picture is all about and evokes the essence of the story", and his work is what enabled him to be known as a symbol of graphic design. Bass used a huge variety of film-making techniques for various short film, more commonly prologues for the project he would be working on - examples of this work is how he created prologues for a film stated to be centred around the middle of World War 2 (1942 est.); his prologue was shown to show the countries' developments between the two world wars, and therefore set the mood for the production.
Bass was rediscovered by producers James L. Brooks and Martin Scorsese who had grown up inspired by Bass' work. As a collaboration, Bass has created a variety of different film sequences for the two, with Casino (1995) being his last ever production.
Bass' legacy is in fact shown in more modern title sequences; mainly those whose stories' may be set in the 1960s. Some homages to Bass' work are featured in Catch Me If You Can (2002), X-Men: First Class (2011) and the AMC series Mad Men. Despite these films being created after Bass' passing, his work is still shown to be a recognisable feat in the history of graphic design, and this helped the evolution of graphic design in terms of society and culture.
"You write a book of 300 to 400 pages and then you boil it down to a script of maybe 100 to 150 pages. Eventually you have the pleasure of seeing that the Basses have knocked you right out of the ballpark. They have boiled it down to four minutes flat."
"Design is thinking made visible."