AP History - Saul Bass 1920-1996

 

The Godfather of Film Titles.

 

Saul Bass was a much respected graphic designer and in the 1950's re-invented movie credit titles with the groundbreaking credits for Otto Preminger’s film The Man with the Golden Arm.

Saul was born on May 8, 1920 in the Bronx, New York. He became one of the most respected and popular graphic designers of the 20th century. He became known to millions of film fans for designing brilliant, animated sequences for motion pictures. In his 40 plus year career he did work for the best Hollywood movie makers including; Otto Preminger, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Billy Wilder and Martin Scorsese.

He did work for numerous movies, including classics such as; Psycho, Casino, West Side Story, Anatomy of a Murder and dozens of others. He won numerous awards, including an Oscar in 1969 for best documentary for Why Man Creates. In 1965 he won the Lion of San Marco award for Best Film about adolescence for the film, The Searching Eye. In 1994 he won Time-Machine Honorary Award and in 1984 won Special Award for the movie Quest. Full filmography for Saul at the IMDB.

He was the man behind many of the worlds top flight companies corporate identities and logos such as AT&T, Minolta and United Airlines, as well as the poster for the Los Angeles Olympic games in 1984. In 1977 he made a documentary on his film title work Bass on Titles. It has been said that once you see the opening titles to a film that Saul Bass has done, you can walk out of the theatre because you know exactly what the film's about; he has shown you the entire thing in the first minute or so.

He died on 25th April, 1996 in Los Angeles. In 2004 The Design Museum in London had a retrospective exhibition of Saul Bass's work.

Saul was represented by Artist Partners throughout the 1950's.

Also check out Brendan Dawes wonderful Tribute to Saul Bass. Then there is Saul's Wikipedia entry and finally there are more Saul Bass videos and inspired videos on YouTube.

 

 

A selection of films with Saul Bass titles
The Man with the Golden Arm 1955	Seven Year Itch 1955	Vertigo 1958
North by Northwest 1959	West Side Story 1961	Goodfellas 1990
Cape Fear 1991		Saul Bass on the set of Psycho with Alfred Hitchcock and Janet Leigh, 1960 © AMPAS
Corporate work and identities