Saul Bass

Saul Bass was born on the 8^th of May 1920 on died on the 25^th of April 1996 at the age of 75. He was an American graphic designer who was best known for his designs of motion picture title sequences, film posters and logo designs, he is also known as one of the greatest graphic designers of the 20^th century. He became well known in the film industry in 1955 after creating the title sequence for ‘The Man with the Golden Arm’.  The film is about a man called Frankie Machine, he is a skilled card dealer and a one-time heroin addict, and he spends 6 months in jail and rehab to help him. When he is released his old drug dealer gets in touch with him to restart his old habit but Frankie doesn’t want any of it, His drug dealer Louie is then killed and the police suspect his old buyer Frankie. Bass chose an arm as the central image of the title sequence, he chose it because it’s strong image relating to the central characters heroin addiction. 

 Bass is famous for his use of simple, geometric shapes and their symbolism. He uses these shapes to create abstract images. Often in his work the images he creates delivers powerful messages to the audiences. These shapes were hand drawn by Bass himself. He had a talent of creating images with powerful meanings and could easily capture the mood of a film with the simple shapes 
and designs he came up with.Even though Bass is most famous for his work in film he started off creating film posters, He was first hired by director and producer Otto Preminger. He then moved onto creating title sequences, creating ‘Carmen Jones’ (1954) as his first one. After working hard to become one of the most well-known graphic designers he was rewarded with an Oscar in 1968 for his short film Why Man 
Creates. 

Bass once described his main goal for his title sequences as being to ‘’try to reach for a simple, visual phrase that tells you what the picture is all about and evokes the essence of the story”.