Saul Bass was born on May 8th, 1920, in New York City, and died on April 25th, 1996 in Los Angeles, California. He was one of the great designers of the 20th century and also a master of film title design. During his 40-year career he has collaborated with the likes of Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese and Otto Preminger, who are considered Hollywood’s greatest filmmakers. Amongst his most famous title sequences is the animated paper cut-out of a heroin addict’s arm for Preminger’s The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), knowing that the arm was a powerful image of addiction, Bass had decided to choose it, rather than the famous face of Frank Sinatra, as the symbol of both the movie titles and the promotional posters. The cut-out arm caused a sensation and Saul Bass reinvented the movie title as an art form. By the end of his life he had created over 50 title sequence designs for Preminger, Alfred Hitchcock and many more film directors. He later decided that he found the Man with the Golden Arm sequence “a little disappointing now, because it was so imitated”.
The design shows that Bass is not afraid to show the cut-out jagged edges, despite the birth of postmodernism which brought the onset of computers and digital art. In my opinion this was intentional as it brought the image a more powerful impact to the audience and almost a shock factor, and with the Frank Sinatra image not being the main focus, it also added to the popularity of the image whereas many would of believed that, in theory, that decision would have had the opposite effect. Bass’ sequence design for Preminger not only influenced other designers to try out his style but Preminger himself very much liked the feel of Bass’ design and that resulted in every succeeding Preminger film carrying Bass's distinctive design mark, as shown here: Bonjour Tristesse, Advise & Consent, Bunny Lake Is Missing, Exodus, The Human Factor, In Harm's Way, Saint Joan, Such Good Friends and perhaps his most famous, the dissected body graphic for Anatomy of Murder.
Here is the title sequence design for The Anatomy of Murder (1959). You can see how bass has replicated the style of The Man with the Golden Arm, using the cut-out effect and the black abstract like image.
Director Spike Lee would later replicate the Bass-designed poster art for his 1995 film ‘Clockers’, for which Bass threatened to sue.
You can see the parady in Spike Lee’s design for Clockers. How he has imitated the black body cut-out and the block rectangular shapes in the background with the two colour pallette. All can be seen in the image for Bass’ The Anatomy of Murder.
The purpose of a movie’s main title sequence is to deliver necessary credit information while stylistically summarizing the film. A good film’s title sequence should be a metaphorical configuration of the film itself. In this respect, and no main title designer has been as influential on the industry as Saul Bass. The influence of graphic designer Saul Bass (1920-1996) on pop culture can be seen virtually everywhere today. During his 40-plus year career he’s designed corporate logos for AT&T (and it’s forerunner Bell), Continental Airlines, Exxon, Girl Scouts, Kleenex, Lawrys, Minolta, Quaker, Rockwell, United Way, and United Airlines to name a few.
Postmodernism literally means 'after the modernist movement'. While "modern" itself refers to something "related to the present", the movement of modernism and then the following reaction of postmodernism are defined by a set of perspectives. It is used in critical theory to refer to work of literature, drama, architecture, cinema, journalism and design, as well as in marketing and business in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Postmodernism is an aesthetic and political philosophy, which was the attempt to describe a condition. Especially since the 1920s' new movements in the arts, while post modernity focuses on social and political aspects and innovations globally, especially since the 1960s in the West. The English Dictionary refers to postmodernism as "a style and concept in the arts characterized by distrust of theories and ideologies and by the drawing of attention to conventions."
Postmodernism in graphic design for the most part has been a visual and decorative movement. Many designers and design critics argue that postmodernism, never really impacted graphic design as it did with other areas of art. Postmodernism never really stuck to graphic design as it did with architecture. Some argue that the "movement" (if there ever was one) had little to no impact on graphic design. It could be argued that graphic design practice and designs may be the root of Postmodernism. Graphic design started to get popular towards the end of the seventies in the form of Graffiti and Hip Hop culture's rise. Expressing yourself in a graphic form became a hobby amongst school kids and people alike.
The Man with the Golden Arm" gained instant notoriety: rather than a glossy photo of Frank Sinatra, the ads prominently displayed a woodblock-like arm that represented heroin use. This graphic symbolization of themes (for example, the directional arrows coming off the words "North" and "Northwest"), along with the use of jagged typefaces, basic colors, and a disturbingly off-kilter graphic style were instantly distinguishable from the conventional, realistic images of the period. Bass himself credits the "mood and feeling" of the images, over the mere use of graphics, for the success of this style. With all this said, Bass’ design relates to postmodernism in the sense that it is aesthetically pleasing to the eye and doesn’t rely on graphics but the “mood and feeling” the images give the audience. Bass has made a breakthrough by making a normal poster design into a work of art basically, and graphic designers ever since have been following in the footsteps of the style he brought to the world from 1950 onwards.
Bibliography
- No More Rules: Graphic Design and Postmodernism, Pg 10,18,38
- Wikipedia.org/ manifestationsofpostmodernism
- Designmuseum.org/design
- imdb.com/name/nm0000866/
- SaulBass.com
- wellmedicated.com/showcase/saul-bass-jack-of-all-trades
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