Saul Bass Occupation title designer director animator Born May 8 1920 New York NY Died April 25 1996 Education Art Students League New York Brooklyn College NY Design is thinking made visual Saul Bass Saul Bass s design accomplishment covers many areas of visual communication graphic design movie titles and lms corporate design programs Bass revolutionized the design of lm title sequences beginning with Otto Preminger s Carmen Jones 1954 He pioneered the use of animation techniques to achieve a range of psychological and emotional effects unobtainable with conventional straight type His collaborations with Preminger and Alfred Hitchcock were outstanding particularly Vertigo 1958 Psycho 1960 and Bunny Lake Is Missing 1965 Even before he made his cinematic debut Bass was a celebrated graphic designer Born in the Bronx district of New York he was a creative child who drew constantly Bass studied at the Art Students League in New York and Brooklyn College under Gyorgy Kepes an Hungarian graphic designer who had worked with L szl Moholy Nagy in 1930s Berlin and ed with him to the US Kepes introduced Bass to Moholy s Bauhaus style and to Russian Constructivism Bass worked as a freelance graphic designer in New York Cha ng at the creative constraints imposed on him in New York he moved to Los Angeles in 1946 After freelancing he opened his own studio in 1950 working mostly in advertising until Preminger invited him to design the poster for his 1954 movie Carmen Jones Impressed by the result Preminger asked Bass to create the lm s title sequence too 1920 Saul Bass is born in the Bronx district of New York 1936 Wins a scholarship to study at the Art Students League in Manhattan 1938 Employed as an assistant in the art department of the New York of ce of Warner Bros 1944 Joins the Blaine Thompson Company an advertising agency and enrolls at Brooklyn College where he is taught by the migr Hungarian designer and design theorist Gyorgy Kepes 1946 Moves to Los Angeles to work as an art director at the advertising agency Buchanan and Company 1952 Opens his own studio named Saul Bass Associates in 1955 1954 Designs his rst title sequence for Otto Preminger s Carmen Jones 1955 Creates titles for Robert Aldrich s The Big Knife and Billy Wilder s The Seven Year Itch The animated sequence he devises for Preminger s The Man with a Golden Arm causes a sensation 1956 Elaine Makatura joins the studio as an assistant 1957 Devises titles for Michael Anderson s Around The World in 80 Days and Preminger s Bonjour Tristesse 1958 Forges a new collaboration with Alfred Hitchcock by designing the titles for Vertigo Works with the architects Buff Straub Hensman on the design of his home Case Study House 20 in Altadena 1959 Creates the title sequences for Hitchcock s North by Northwest and Preminger s Anatomy of a Murder 1960 First title commission for Stanley Kubrick Spartacus and the last for Hitchcock Psycho 1962 Devises titles for Edward Dmytryk s Walk on the Wild Side and directs his rst short lm Apples and Oranges Marries Elaine Makatura 1963 Stanley Kramer commissions Bass to create titles for It s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World 1966 Directs the racing sequences and devises the titles for John Frankenheimer s Grand Prix 1968 Wins an Oscar for the short lm Why Man Creates and develops a corporate identity programme for the Bell System telephone company Creates an installation for the Milan Triennale which is cancelled after a student occupation 1973 Designs the corporate identity of United Airlines 1974 Directs his rst feature lm Phase IV 1980 Designs the poster for Stanley Kubrick s The Shining and devises the corporate identity of the Minolta camera company 1984 Creates a poster for the Los Angeles Olympic Games 1987 James L Brooks persuades Bass to return to title design by creating the opening sequence of Broadcast News 1990 Begins a long collaboration with Martin Scorsese by creating the titles for GoodFellas 1991 Devises the titles for Scorsese s Cape Fear and a poster for the 63rd Academy Awards Bass designs the Academy Awards poster for the next ve years 1993 Creates the title sequence for Scorsese s The Age of Innocence and a poster for Steven Spielberg s Schindler s List 1995 Designs titles for Scorsese s Casino 1996 Saul Bass dies in Los Angeles of non Hodgkins lymphoma Many people who never heard of Saul Bass are surprised to learn really how much of his work they know 1 2 4 5 1 Poster for The Man With the Golden Arm 1955 2 Poster for Vertigo 1958 Director Alfred Hitchcock 3 Poster for Bunny Lake is Missing 1965 4 Poster for One Two Three 1961 5 Poster for The Two of Us 3 Saul Bass created one of his most prestigious and evocative title sequences The graphic motifs that Bass suggested were nervous balletic horizontal and vertical bars that expanded and contracted in mirror image patterns They simultaneously suggest prison bars city buildings and sound waves Their movement also symbolizes the psychotic schizophrenia of the main character Norman Bates Anthony Perkins In those days explained Bass I liked strong clear structural forms against which to do things I liked giving more zip to Psycho because it was not only the name of the picture but a word that means something I was trying to make it more frenetic and I liked the idea of images suggesting clues coming together Bass Hitchcock designs Vertigo 1958 Spinning vortex credit design North by Northwest 1959 Lines going up north and left west credit design Psycho 1960 Lines symbolizing stabbing knife credit design and shower murder design The lm explores the title sequences from The Man with the Golden Arm 1955 West Side Story 1961 Walk on the Wild Side 1962 It s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World 1963 Seconds 1966 Bass also provides fascinating insight into some of his lesser known titles Grand Prix 1966 Nine Hours to Rama 1963 The Victors 1963 In Harm s Way 1965 The Big Country 1958 It s a clich but Saul Bass really has done it all Films Packaging Products Architecture Corporate identi cation Graphics His work surrounds us Take a plane United Continental Frontier Saul Bass Go to a lm Psycho Anatomy of a Murder Exodus Spartacus The Man With the Golden Arm Advise Consent Such Good Friends Saul Bass In the supermarket or in the kitchen Wesson Quaker Alcoa Lawry s Dixie Saul Bass Relax with a magazine read a book watch TV take some pictures Saturday Evening Post Warner Minolta Saul Bass Give to charity The United Way Girl Scouts Saul Bass Strike an Ohio Blue Tip