Designer Profile
Saul Bass
(1920-1996)

Design is thinking made visual. 
-- Saul Bass

Saul Bass was an American graphic designer and Academy Award-winning filmmaker, but he is best known for his design on animated motion picture title sequences.

During his 40-year career he worked for some of Hollywoods greatest filmmakers, including most notably Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger, Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese. Amongst his most famous title sequences are the animated paper cut-out of a heroin addicts arm for Premingers The Man with the Golden Arm, the text racing up and down what eventually becomes a high-angle shot of the United Nations building in Alfred Hitchcocks North by Northwest, and the disjointed text that raced together and was pulled apart for Psycho.

Bass designed title sequences for 40 years, for films as diverse as Spartacus (1960), The Victors (1963), Its a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) and Casino (1995). He also designed title sequences for films such as Goodfellas (1990), Doc Hollywood (1991), Cape Fear (1991) and The Age of Innocence (1993), all of which feature new and innovative methods of production and startling graphic design.

Selected film title sequences and respective dates

Carmen Jones (1954)
The Man with the Golden Arm (1955)
The Seven Year Itch (1955)
Around the World in Eighty Days (1956)
Bonjour Tristesse (1958)
Vertigo (1958)
Anatomy of a Murder (1958)
The Big Country (1958)
North by Northwest (1959)
Psycho (1960)
Spartacus (1960)
Exodus (1960)
Advise and Consent (1960)
Oceans Eleven (1960)
West Side Story (1961)
Walk on the Wild Side (1962)
The Victors (1963)
Nine Hours to Rama (1963)
Its a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)
The Cardinal (1963)
In Harms Way (1965)
Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965)
Grand Prix (1966)
Seconds (1966)
Broadcast News (1987)
Big (1988)
The War of the Roses (1989)
Goodfellas (1990)
Cape Fear (1991)
Doc Hollywood (1991)
Age of Innocence (1993)
Casino (1995)

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