This summer’s Be the Artist 2020 series highlights art created with a specific purpose in mind.
The Purpose: Movie Posters by Saul Bass
For more than 60 years, graphic designer Saul Bass created some of the most influential movie poster designs and movie title sequences in the Twentieth Century and helped give the commercial art of graphic design a new appreciation.
Bass was born in the Bronx, NY in 1920, and enjoyed drawing his entire life. When he finished his college at Art Students League and Brooklyn College, he worked for a short time as an advertising designer in New York and then in Los Angeles until starting his own business in 1952. One of his first posters was in 1954 for Otter Preminger’s Carmen Jones. Preminger loved it so much he asked Bass to do the opening credits. Bass also did the opening credits for The Man With the Golden Arm, which tackled the touchy subject of heroin addiction, and gained him plenty of attention in the field.
He worked on several more movie poster designs and movie title sequences, including many of Alfred Hitchcock’s posters. His opening sequence for the movie North by Northwest helped turn the title sequence into an art form.
