SAUL BASS

One of the greatest graphic designers of the 20th century, Saul Bass was the
master of film title design. Before Bass, film titles were uninspiring lists of the
cast and crew projected on to cinema curtains, which were opened when the
action began. The title sequences Bass devised for directors such as Alfred
Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, Stanley Kubrick, Otto Preminger and Martin Scorsese
are among the most enduring images in the history of design and cinema.

Believing that a film should engage its audience from the first frame, Bass
created compelling title sequences by identifying a single image – at once
metaphorical, provocative and seductive – to symbolise the film. He depicted
that image as a visual spectacle: from the haunting silhouette of an addict’s arm
in the titles of Preminger’s The Man With The Golden Arm; to a Danteesque
descent into the neon hell of Las Vegas in Scorsese’s Casino.

Born in 1920 in the Bronx district of New York, Bass worked as a commercial
artist, while studying under the Bauhaus-influenced designer Gyorgy Kepes. He
moved to Los Angeles in 1946 and sought commissions from empathetic film
makers. From the early 1960s, Bass made his own films– winning an Oscar for
his short, Why Man Creates – and designed the corporate identities of
companies such as AT&T, Minolta, Quaker and United Airlines.

By the late 1980s, Bass was persuaded to return to film title design by a new
generation of directors who had grown up with his work. Among them was
Martin Scorsese for whom Bass – working with his wife, Elaine – created some
of his most accomplished titles for GoodFellas, Cape Fear, The Age of
Innocence and, before his death in 1996, Casino. Saul Bass ended his career as
he had begun by “transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary”.

Early Years
Born in 1920 in the Bronx district of New York, Saul Bass was the second child
of Jewish émigrés from the Ukraine, a furrier, Aaron, and his wife Pauline. A
creative child, Bass designed posters at high school and, in 1936, won a
scholarship to study at the Art Student’s League in Manhattan.

Seeking employment as a commercial artist, Bass became an assistant in the

art department of the New York office of Warner Bros movie studio. Three years
later, he moved to a rival studio, 20th Century Fox. Frustrated there, Bass left in
1944 to join the Blaine Thompson Company, an advertising agency, where he
devised an award-winning Tylon Cold Wave advertisement.
In the same year, Bass enrolled at Brooklyn College to study under the
Hungarian émigré designer Gyorgy Kepes. A friend and collaborator of the
former Bauhaus teacher László Moholy-Nagy, Kepes had taught at Moholy’s
New Bauhaus design school in Chicago. As a design theorist, he developed
pioneering ideas on the interpretation of visual language. His 1944 book
Language of Vision remains one of the most influential texts on the subject.
Kepes encouraged Bass’ growing interest in visual language and in the
European modern movement.

Bass drew on Kepes’ teaching in his commercial work at Blaine Thompson,

where he was assigned the Warner Bros account. His reputation rising, Bass
was head-hunted by a larger advertising agency, Buchanan and Company,
which in 1946 employed him as an art director in Los Angeles.

1950s
During his early years in Los Angeles, Bass applied his reductionist style to the
advertising for a series of films. In 1952, he opened his own studio hoping to
work with empathetic clients. Among them was Otto Preminger, who
commissioned him to design the advertising for 1954’s Carmen Jones. When
Bass showed Preminger the film’s symbol – a flame superimposed on a rose –
he suggested: “Why not make it move?” Bass animated it into a simple, but
striking title sequence and became the first graphic designer to be granted a
screen credit by the Director’s Guild of America.

Until then, film titles consisted of simple lists of the cast and crew projected on to
the cinema curtains. Bass believed that the audience should be engaged by a
film from its first frame. Preminger enabled him to develop this idea in the titles
for his controversial 1955 film on drug addiction The Man with the Golden Arm.
Convinced that a title sequence should consist of “a single image that takes a
highly reductive form that is terribly simple and metaphorical, but at the same
time provocative,” Bass chose the jagged silhouette of an addict’s arm for
Preminger’s film. It was so expressive that when the film opened in New York,
that image – without the title – appeared outside the cinema.

Saul Bass had transformed the film title into an art form. By the end of the 1950s
he had designed 19 film title sequences for such distinguished directors as
Alfred Hitchcock and Billy Wilder, as well as Otto Preminger.

1960s
Having defined his approach to title design, Bass experimented with
increasingly complex techniques throughout the 1960s. For Stanley Kubrick’s
Spartacus in 1960, he worked with Elaine Makatura, whom he married that year,
on an ingenious sequence of a disintegrating Roman bust to symbolise the
“oppressiveness and sophistication” of the doomed Roman Empire.
In the same year Bass executed his most ambitious project for Hitchcock in
Psycho. The film begins with horizontal and vertical bars penetrating the screen
in a frenzy to evoke the mania of its central character, Norman Bates, and to set
the scene for a terrifying drama. A book, The Care and Handling of Psycho, was
issued to all cinema managers to ensure that no one would be admitted to the
cinema after the start of the film.

For some films, Bass revived his original approach of identifying a single,
emblematic image, such as the outstretched arm of In Harm’s Way and torn-out
figure in Bunny Lake Is Missing. He also experimented with live action by
depicting a domestic cat as a predator in Walk on the Wild Side; animation in It’s
A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World; and split-screen imagery in Grand Prix. Bass
even sneaked coded messages to friends and family among the graffiti in the
epilogue of West Side Story. The 1966 title sequence for Grand Prix would be
his last for five years. From the mid-1960s, Bass was increasingly absorbed by
film making and won an Oscar in 1968 for Why Man Creates, the short film he
directed with Elaine.

Saul Bass at Work

Passionate about archeology, basketball, food, music, science fiction and
politics, as well as film, Bass wove his eclectic interests not only into his work as
a graphic designer, but into lectures, seminars and charitable projects. “My life
and work are intertwined,” he said. “One can’t truly be separated from the other.”

He and Elaine enjoyed travelling and forged friendships all over the world. An
habitual doodler and sketcher, Bass also loved photography and recorded their
trips with snapshots of anything that caught his eye. His studio was filled with
memorabilia from his travels and archeological expeditions with Elaine. The film
maker Arnold Schwartzman remembered walking into Bass’ office on Sunset
Boulevard in the early 1990s to discover an ‘Aladdin’s Cave’ with dozens of pre-
Columbian clay figures standing in neat rows on the floor beside an American
Indian head dress. Photographs of family and friends covered the walls and
there were so many curios on Bass’ desk that there was barely space for his
pad and pencil.

Throughout his career Bass relished opportunities to experiment in different

fields: whether it was designing children’s toys and books, co-founding the
Aspen International Design Conference, or collaborating with the architects Buff,
Straub & Hensman on the design of Case Study House #20, which briefly
became his home on North Santa Rosa Avenue, Altadena. Whatever he did,
Bass was inspired by the belief that “design livens up our environment and our
lives” by “transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary”.
Corporate Identity
As a young commercial artist, Bass had developed trademarks and corporate
literature for such diverse companies as Eastman Kodak, Pabco Paints and the
Shell oil group. He returned to corporate design in the mid-1960s, albeit on a
more ambitious scale, by devising identity programmes for large US companies.

Convinced that designing the visual identity of a company was similar to

creating the symbol of a film “only slightly less emotional”, Bass adopted an
identical approach by identifying a single image to symbolise the company. He
began by asking every client the same questions: “First tell me what you want to
say, who you want to say it to and why you want to say it.”

For Bell System, the new telephone company created by the merger of 23
regional operators in 1969, Bass devised the simple, but eloquent silhouette of a
bell as an allusion to the telephone ring tone, the company’s name and that of
the telephone’s inventor, Alexander Graham Bell. Three years later he framed a
playful letter W inside a television screen for Warner Communications.

The ribboned U that Bass designed as United Airlines’ identity in 1976 evoked
airline routes circling the globe. In 1984 he invented a new visual symbol in the
striped globe he devised as AT&T’s identity to emphasise the increasingly
international nature of its activities as a telecommunications company. The
same symbol has since been imitated in numerous corporate identities.

1980s + 1990s
Throughout the 1970s Bass was so disillusioned with film titles that he only
created a handful of sequences. “Titles became fashionable instead of useful,
and that’s when I got out.” By the late 1980s, a new generation of directors had
emerged who had grown up with – and loved – Bass’ titles in the 1950s and
1960s. The first to seek him out was James L. Brooks, who persuaded Bass to
design a simple opening sequence for his 1987 film Broadcast News.

Among his admirers was Martin Scorsese who invited he and Elaine to create
title sequences for GoodFellas in 1990 and Cape Fear in 1991. For Scorsese’s
1993 film The Age of Innocence, the Basses sought to express the repressed
sexuality and stifling social codes of late 19th century New York society in a
sumptuous collage of calligraphy, lace and blooming roses.

Bass’ final title sequence, for Scorsese’s 1995 Casino, was among his most
remarkable works. Set against the soundtrack of St Matthew’s Passion, he and
Elaine recreated a Danteesque descent into hell by depicting the corpse of the
film’s star Robert De Niro falling against the neon lights of Las Vegas using an
intricate combination of film processes such as over-cranking, enlarging, super
imposing and dissolving on new material and unused 1960s footage of the city.
When Bass died the following year Scorsese praised him for creating “an
emblematic image, instantly recognisable and immediately tied to the film”.
Martin Scorsese on Saul Bass

Before I had the honor of working with Saul Bass, I revered him. When we
started working together on GoodFellas, I had to keep reminding myself that the
title sequence for my movie was being designed by the man who had done the
titles for Vertigo, Psycho, Anatomy of a Murder and Seconds, among many
others. He had been someone I admired from a distance, and now he was my
collaborator. And throughout the next five years, on GoodFellas, Cape Fear,
The Age of Innocence, Casino and my documentary A Personal Journey
Through American Movies, he became one of my most valued collaborators.
And now, I often think back and realise: for a short time, all too short, I had the
privilege of working with Saul Bass.

Title sequences all too often overwhelm the movie that follows. Or, they serve as
a neutral backdrop, or a holding pattern before the real movie begins. Saul gave
us something different. He was a true artist, and a brilliant one. He took time
with the movie, and he always arrived at an understanding of the way it was
working, where it was going, before he put his astonishing talent to work on the
problem of the design itself. In collaboration with his wife Elaine, the introductory
sequences he created for my films were five masterpieces of the form. Each
sequence embodied the mysteries of those films, but somehow never gave
away their secrets. I’m so moved when I think of the work that Saul and Elaine
did on those films – I’m moved when I remember their passion, their exquisite
artistry, and the depth of their understanding.

This exhibition is long overdue. It will enrich the life of each and every person
who visits it, as they take a look at the work this wonderful man, this giant in his
field, named Saul Bass.

25 June 2004
Saul Bass
Biography

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 office of
Warner Bros

1944 Joins the Blaine Thompson Company, an advertising agency, and enrolls
at Brooklyn College, where he is taught by the émigré 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 first 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. Marries Elaine Makatura

1962 Devises titles for Edward Dmytryk’s Walk on the Wild Side and directs his
first short film, Apples and Oranges
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 film 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 first feature film 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 five
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

© Design Museum

To learn more about Saul Bass and other designers, visit the Design at the Design
Museum research archive on our award-winning website at www.designmuseum.org

For more information and images, please contact Charlotte Laing on 020 7940 8787,
Fleur Treglown on 020 7940 8771, or email them at media@designmuseum.org
SAUL BASS

Curator: Neil R Symington

Design Museum Curator: Donna Loveday
Exhibition Design: The Richard Greenwood Partnership
Graphic Design: John Morgan studio
Lighting Design: Durham Marenghi
Film Compilations: Kuntzel + Deygas at Nexus Productions
This exhibition was devised and curated by Neil R Symington

The Design Museum would like to give special thanks to:

Elaine Bass, Jennifer Bass and Lance Glover
Anne Coco, Linda Mehr and Brad Roberts at the Margaret Herrick Library,
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Kuntzel + Deygas
Charlotte Bavasso and Chris O’ Reilly at Nexus Productions
Libby Savill and Jacqueline Hurt at Olswang
Martin Scorsese

Michael Autton
Elmer Bernstein
British Film Institute
Pablo Ferro
Bill Haig
Ben Hunt
Peter Jones
Pat Kirkham
Sarah Mann
Jim Northover at Lloyd Northover
Tony Nourmand, Bruce Marchant, Kim Goddard, Alison Aitchison at
The Reel Poster Gallery
Arnold Schwartzman
Gregory Thomas
Angela Morrison at Working Title

Film footage courtesy of:

MGM
Paramount Pictures
Pyramid Media
Sony Pictures Television International / Columbia Pictures
Turner Entertainment Co.
Twentieth Century Fox
Universal Studios Licensing LLLP
Warner Bros Entertainment Inc.