Saul Bass

Saul Bass was born on May 8, 1920, to Eastern European Jewish immigrants, in Bronx, New York, and died April 25, 1996. He was a very prominent American graphic designer in the 20^th century. He is known for designing motion picture title sequence, as well as corporate logos and movie posters. Saul Bass did his tertiary studies at Brooklyn College, where he attended night classes. After successfully completing his studies, he worked as a freelancer for multiple advertising agencies such as Warner Bros. He later moved to Los Angeles, where he decided to go ahead and pursue graphic designing as a commercial artist.

In the 1940’s, Bass took up some Hollywood projects, which involved print work for promotional purposes. In the year 1952, he ventured off and started up his own practice and a few years later, he established his private firm as Saul Bass & Associates.

Saul Bass’s work can be described as being minimalist, in which he would tend to use simple geometric shapes in his designs to aid in carrying out his mood and message to the audience. His art and typography were often intentionally identifiable as hand-drawn to further carry over the meaning he wanted to convey to an audience.

Bass was offered a job from the filmmaker Otto Preminger in 1954, to do a poster design for Carmen Jones. It was because of his skills, why Preminger was left impressed, that asked him to also do his film’s title sequence. It was at this point that Bass realized that the title sequence can not only be served as simple static credits, but it has a way of enhancing the watching experience of the viewers. He also took note of the fact that title sequence also has a way of setting the mood and theme at the opening of a film.

The influence that his minimalistic style has on other works can still be seen in a number of movie posters today. Additionally, the title sequences of many films and television series, such as the modern hit ‘Mad Men’, are often quoted as homage to the ground breaking work of Saul Bass.

‘Catch Me If You Can’ is one of the most well-known Saul Bass inspired title sequences. The film was set during the 1960’s which was when Saul Bass was extremely popular, there for taking influence from him seemed the logical thing to do. This sequence does not only capture the look of some of his work but it also sets out to achieve one of the things that Saul Bass found the most important when creating a title sequence.

Some examples of Saul Bass’ work include:

“The film focused on a musician’s struggle to defeat his heroin addiction. As to underline the intensity of then tabooed subject, he featured an animated paper cut-out arm in the film title which had a sensational effect on the audience. “