Image – Wikimedia/Saul Bass
Today I choose to talk about Saul bass (1920-1996) born in New York, what happens to be one of the most important graphic designers of the last century, being the favorite designer of people like Alfred Hitchcock , Otto Preminger or Martin Scorsese, or creator of several of the Most recognizable corporate images in historya, as can be those of Exxon, Kleenex, Warner Bros, Minolta, IBM, UPS, or Ford.
The good of Saul, was creative from childhood, studying at New York College Arts League , and then move on to Brooklyn College where he had a teacher Gyorgy kepes, Hungarian graphic designer who had worked with László Moholy-Nagy (the famous Hungarian painter and photographer), being Kepes the one who taught the young man Saul the style Bauhaus the good of Laszló and Russian constructivism, influencing the style of bass as can be seen in his work.
After working as an apprentice with several of MManhattan , bass Work as freelance graphic designer o commercial artist as they were called back then. Fed up with creative limitations who suffered in New York, moved to Los Angeles en 1940.
En 1950 I set up my own design studio, where I develop above all advertising, until 1954, Otto Preminger he calls you to design his movie poster Carmen jones. So impressed was the good of Otto with the work of saul, that made him do the Opening o credit titles.
The spectacular result of the design of bass, I cause him to end up designing also those of two 1955 movies how were they The Big Knife de robert aldrich y The Seven Year Itch de Billy Wilder. But it was the next movie of preminger, The Man with the Arm of Gold, the one who raised bass to the title of Master of credit titles. And then continued ...
I create an authentic animation short for the credits of the movie de mike todd, Around the World in 80 Days, or movie poster design Hello Sadness de preminger.
The good of Saul this blessed with the gift of creating an image that symbolized the film perfectly, made this a new style which represented the idea of modernity that accompanied the decade. In Vertigo, 1958 , with the first opening of Alfred Hitchcock, bass shot a extreme close-up from the face of a woman and his eye before turning into one sinister spiral as a blood red soaks the screen. For your next order from the teacher Hitchcock, With death on his heels de 1959 , leave the world of design again amazed, when creating a sequence of credits where he simulated with the texts the activity of an elevator in a skyscraper-type building. Equally disturbing, are the vertical bars that sweep across the screen at Psychosis, Hitchcock .
This sequence staccato is a symbol of inspiration of the fractured psyche Norman Bates. Hitchcock also allowed bass to work on the film itself, especially its dramatic climax, la famous shower scene with Janet Leigh. Saul became something more than its designer for Alfred, being one of his regular collaborators.
bass has been basic to understand the evolution of design in the 60s and 70s, designing from movie posters of the most acclaimed directors of the timeUntil the Corporate Images of the Stronger companies the last century. We have all grown up under the influence of his work.
Minolta, Warner o United Airlines consist of Logos that those who have seen movies all their lives like me, will remember to see everywhere in the cinema of the 70s, 80s and 90s. Saul did not stop ... 66 runs a short series, culminating in a Oscar en 1968 for his movie Why Man Creates. How can you imagine, this just did motivate him more ... If I had to quote a list of your works this post would have no end.
I want to highlight his work in the olympic games poster de Los Angeles, the movie poster of Spielberg, La Schlinder's list or the titles of Casino de Martin Scorsese, author with him collaborated a lot in the decade of the 90. Martin Scorsese said of him: Saul bass has a creative approach capable of designing an iconic image, instantly recognizable and immediately linked to the film.