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 addicts arm in the titles of Premingers The Man With The Golden Arm; to a Danteesque descent into the neon hell of Las Vegas in Scorseses 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 migrs 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 Students 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 migr designer Gyorgy Kepes. A friend and collaborator of the former Bauhaus teacher Lszl Moholy-Nagy, Kepes had taught at Moholys 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 1954s Carmen Jones. When Bass showed Preminger the films 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 Directors 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 addicts arm for Premingers 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 Kubricks 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 Harms 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 Its 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 cant 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 Aladdins Cave with dozens of preColumbian 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 childrens 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 companys name and that of the telephones 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&Ts 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 thats 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 Scorseses 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 Scorseses 1995 Casino, was among his most remarkable works. Set against the soundtrack of St Matthews Passion, he and Elaine recreated a Danteesque descent into hell by depicting the corpse of the films 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. Im so moved when I think of the work that Saul and Elaine did on those films Im 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 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 first title sequence for Otto Premingers Carmen Jones 1955 Creates titles for Robert Aldrichs The Big Knife and Billy Wilders The Seven Year Itch. The animated sequence he devises for Premingers The Man with a Golden Arm causes a sensation 1956 Elaine Makatura joins the studio as an assistant 1957 Devises titles for Michael Andersons Around The World in 80 Days and Premingers 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 Hitchcocks North by Northwest and Premingers 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 Dmytryks Walk on the Wild Side and directs his first short film, Apples and Oranges 1963 Stanley Kramer commissions Bass to create titles for Its A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

1966 Directs the racing sequences and devises the titles for John Frankenheimers 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 Kubricks 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 Scorseses 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 Scorseses The Age of Innocence and a poster for Steven Spielbergs Schindlers List 1995 Designs titles for Scorseses 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.