Saul Bass

Saul Bass was born in 1920 and died in 1996.He was best known as a graphic designer, designing posters for movies such as Vertigo, Bunny Lake is Missing and The Man with the Golden Arm because of his relationships with the directors Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger and Martin Scorsese. He worked for these filmmakers along with Stanley Kubrick and other great Hollywood directors of the 20th Century. He also made title sequences for The Man with the Golden Arm, Psycho and North by Northwest.
Bass produced memorable title sequences for Hitchcock using kinetic typography (for North by Northwest, Vertigo and Psycho) He moved away from this technique, in favor of computerized titles, when working with Martin Scorsese- which is how he produced the title sequence for Casino.
For 40 years he designed a wide variety of different-genre title sequences such as Spartacus (1960), The Victors (1963), Casino (1995), Goodfella’s (1990), Doc Hollywood (1991) and Cape Fear (1991). Some of these movies feature new methods of production and graphic design.
There was a controversial issue over a scene from the film Psycho, directed by Hitchcock, where Bass claimed that he helped direct the scene. ‘Direct’ was taken as two different meanings: literally directed and ‘directing’ in the way that he influenced the scene with his graphic contribution.
To the left is an example of his work
· The film poster for ‘The Man With the Golden Arm’(1955, directed by Otto Preminger)

This is a classic example of his work because of the bold colours and block shapes used. The design is eye-catching and hints at what the movie is about using the image of a broken arm. The block shapes can be interpreted as just the design or a room/building. The image of the arm may also look different to different people.