Saul Bass

Born in 1920, died in 1996, Saul Bass began his artistic career at Art Students' League in Manhattan.
Bass’ highly acclaimed work can be distinguished by his simple but characteristic style. He is probably most famous for his animated title sequences which made films such as ‘Vertigo’ and ‘Psycho’ a major attraction, his first being Otto Preminger’s ‘Carmen Jones’ in 1954. Previous title sequences were not of particular interest to the audience and therefore most cinemas did not open the curtains for them. However, Bass specifically requested for the curtains to be opened so his work could be viewed.
Throughout his career he also created many film posters one of the most famous being ‘The Man with the Golden Arm’. He used paper cut into irregular shapes to build up images incorporating elements from the film. This was a relatively new concept and led to the success of his work; previously film posters were illustrated with photos of the famous actors and did not connect to the film’s plot.

‘The Man with the Golden Arm’ was a film about a jazz player who had to overcome his heroin addiction. His original poster is a simple but effective design. In the centre gold text frames a black silhouette of an arm. As the arm is the only identifiable shape the poster has, attention is drawn to it. It not only directly relates to the title but also gives people an idea of what the film was about; the man injected into his arm.
The use of dark colours may reflect the despair the drug addict felt throughout his rehab. Bass has also limited the number of colours he used, which suggests loneliness.
The angular shapes are cut out free hand giving them an uneven edge. This reminds me of cut outs by Matisse due to the block colour and simple shapes.


The poster Bass designed for ‘Vertigo’ again uses very few colours but is still eye-catching – the bright red background grabs attention, perhaps symbolising danger.
Bass uses a white spiral, which is drawn in such a way to suggest, as the title implies, looking down from a height. In the centre of the spiral is a silhouette of a man and the outline of a woman. The man on his own looks as though he is running away from something but as a pair they look as though they are dancing. As they are placed at the centre of the spiral it makes me think that perhaps the illness is of great affect and importance (good or bad) to them. In the poster it appears to engulf the two.
There is little text; two names of the actors starring in the film, the director and the title. It is all written in the same uneven style; when two of the same letters appear they do not look the same.

My favourite Saul Bass poster is for ‘Advise and Consent’; I really like the way Bass uses text to create a object, in this case a bag. As the writing is compressed from a distance it merges together to look like shading.
Unlike most of Bass’ posters the title is not very large, instead it has been incorporated into the tag that hangs from the bad.