Saul Bass was born on May 8th in 1920 in New York City to East European immigrants. He passed away from non-hodgkin's lymphoma on April 25th in 1996.
During his life, Saul Bass was an Oscar winning filmmaker that worked in Hollywood from the 1940s to the 1990s, working with legends in the film industry such as Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese and Alfred Hitchcock.
what did he do?
He started off his career in the late 1940s and early 1950s, designing advertisements for films such as Champion (1949) and Death of a Salesman (1951). Otto Preminger (the director of these films) asked Bass to create an opening title sequence for his 1955 title "The Man with the Golden Arm" starring Frank Sinatra after being extremely impressed with Bass' work.
After creating an incredibly successful opening title sequence that appropriately suited the dark, controversial theme of the film, Bass became well known in Hollywood and his genius creativity was recognised by many.
This was his first opening title sequence (The Man with the Golden Arm)
Working with Alfred Hitchcock, he designed a new type of kinetic typography for opening title sequences for films such as Psycho (1960) and North by Northwest (1958). This was the level of innovation that separated Bass' skills from others in the film industry as opening title sequences were usually dull and static, with no real level of creativity.
This is the opening title sequence he designed for Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960)
Working with Stanley Kubrick, Bass created a lot of posters for his film: The Shining (1980). A lot of them were rejected by Kubrick as he had very high expectations and standards.
This is one rejected poster that Bass designed for The Shining and Kubrick's notes. This illustrates how crucial it is to have a poster that accurately represents the the film.
Logos bass designed for companies
Examples of his posters:
His iconic orange and black designs will forever be a reminder of one of Hollywood's greatest and most influential graphic designer's impact on today's films.