About Saul Bass...Saul Bass,(1920-1996) American motion-picture designer-director, especially noted for imaginative, animated titles, prologues, and epilogues.

Bass studied at the Arts Students League in New York City, attended Brooklyn College, and worked as a freelance designer before moving to Los Angeles in 1946.

Bass successfully directed and produced short animated films, television openings and commercials, live documentaries, and features.

It was, however, his creative art direction of such motion pictures as Around the World in Eighty Days (1956), Vertigo (1958), Psycho (1960), Spartacus (1960) etc.

Analysis of Saul Bass’ Title Sequences...

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Some of his work…

1950s

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1960s

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What Saul Bass thought about design...

“I want everything we do to be beautiful. I don’t give a damn whether the client understands that that’s worth anything, or that the client thinks it’s worth anything, or whether it is worth anything. It’s worth it to me. It’s the way I want to live my life. I want to make beautiful things, even if nobody cares. “—Saul Bass

Work which Bass has inspired and influenced...

Steven Spielberg’s 2002 Catch Me If You Can, created by Florence Deygas & Olivier Kuntzel.

Saul Bass’ work influenced generations of graphic designers to follow and transform the ordinary movie title sequence into an art form in itself.

Various film title sequences and movie posters

In 1958, Saul Bass worked once more with Otto Preminger for Anatomy of a Murder. I think his deconstructive technique works especially well the dead body, and is a clever play of the “anatomy” part of the film’s title.

The design influence for the Anatomy of a Murder poster is evident in the poster for Clockers (Spike Lee, 1995). This was not put together by Bass.

Most recently, a homage to Saul Bass in this poster for Precious (Lee Daniels, 2009).

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