Paula Hammond - Features EditorThis September, the work graphic designer and award-winning filmmaker Saul Bass is celebrated with a brand new volume highlighting twenty of his most iconic film posters.
Saul Bass (1920-1996) was one most important designers of the Twentieth Century. Having created some of the most compelling images in American, postwar visual culture he quickly extended the remit of graphic design to include film titles.
His best-known works include a series of unforgettable posters and title sequences for films such as Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo and Otto Preminger’s The Man With The Golden Arm, which dealt with the struggles with a heroin addict.
For Preminger’s controversial film, Bass’ daring title sequences and poster art featured a white-on- black paper cut-out arm of a heroin addict. When working with Hitchcock, Bass was equally innovative, inventing a new style of moving typography which was adapted and refined over films such as North By Northwest and Psycho.
For Around The World In Eighty Days, he produced a fully animated mini-movie as which acted as the epilogue to the movie.
Always an innovator, Bass eventually moved away from the graphic imagery that he had helped pioneer into computer aided design.
Bass was one of the original Mad Men style designers. In fact, the titles for the AMC series were inspired by his wok.
For the first time, Saul Bass: 20 Iconic Film Posters brings together a collection of Bass’s legendary posters including The Magnificent Seven, Spartacus, The Big Country, and The Shining. Each poster is removable and designed to fit 12×16” frame, making it the perfect gift for film lovers and fans of twentieth-century design.
Saul Bass: 20 Iconic Film Posters (ISBN – 978 1 8566 99891) is priced £19.95 and includes: The Man With The Golden Arm, Saint Joan, Love In The Afternoon, Bonjour Tristesse, The Big Country, Vertigo, Anatomy Of A Murder, Exodus, Spartacus, The Magnificent Seven, Advise & Consent, The Cardinal, In Harm’s Way, Bunny Lake Is Missing, Seconds, Grand Prix, The Fixer, Such Good Friends, The Shining, Schindler’s List
Image of Saul Bass: Saul Bass, for an article in Show business illustrated, 1962, Photograph by Bob Willoughby.
