Before I decided which designer I wanted to focus my web essay on, I did a quick google search of each of the possibilities. This allowed me to quickly see what their work was like and if it stood out to me, as some of the designers I hadn’t heard of before. This allowed me to narrow it down to four names, Saul Bass, Otto Neurath, Jessica Neurath, and Kyle Tezak. My next step was to carry out some research into each of the designers to see who I feel I could write a successful essay on and also, which one I have the most interest in.
Saul Bass:
May 8 1920 – April 25 1996
Saul Bass was a graphic designer and filmmaker. He is best known for his design of film posters and title sequences. Over the course of his 40 year long career, Bass worked with some of Hollywood’s greatest filmmakers. This included Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, and Martin Scorsese.
Bass became well-known within the film industry, as well as in design, after creating the title sequence for Otto Preminger’s “The Man With The Golden Arm” in 1955.For Alfred Hitchcock, he designed effective and memorable title sequences, “Vertigo” and “Psycho”. This resulted in Bass inventing a new type of kinetic typography.
Outside of the film industry, he designed iconic corporate logos in North America, including the original AT&T ‘bell’ logo in 1969, Continental Airlines’ 1968 ‘jet stream’ logo and the ‘tulip logo’ for United Airlines in 1974.
I really like the simplicity of the majority of Bass’ designs, especially the film posters. They give me the impression that they have been created in some cases using collaged and cut paper. His limited colour scheme is also effective, particularly the use of red and black is very striking. In terms of my essay, possible questions/statements to focus around could be ‘How did Saul Bass shape design within the film industry?’ or ‘Saul Bass and Hollywood’s Filmmakers’.
Otto Neurath:
10 Dec 1882 – 22 Dec 1945
Otto Neurath was an Austrian-born philosopher of science, sociologist and political economist. Neurath was the inventor of the ISOTYPE method of pictorial statistics and an innovator in museum practice.
ISOTYPE: is a method of showing social, technological, biological and historical connections in pictorial forms. It consists of a set of standardised and abstracted pictorial symbols to represent social scientific guidelines on how to combine the identical figures using serial repetition.
Before fleeing his native country, he was a leading figure in the Vienna Circle ( a group of philosophers and scientists drawn from the natural and social sciences, logic and mathematics). The application of simple colours and figures using the techniques of Lino-cutting and printing methods was the best for producing simple graphic symbols.
When I first started researching Neurath’s work, I found it interesting how he combined design with his previous background. I hadn’t realised how complicated the simple figures could be. I feel as though I don’t have enough understanding or interest in this subject area to write my web essay on compared to the other designers.
Jessica Hische:
April 4 1984
Jessica Hische is an American lettering artist, illustrator, author and type designer. She has written two New York best-selling children’s books: Tomorrow I’ll be Brave and Tomorrow I’ll be Kind.
Hische attended the Tyler School of Art and graduated with BFA in Graphic and Interactive Design.After graduating, she worked at the Louise Fili studio until she became a free lancer as a letterer, illustrator and type designer.
Hische has been featured in many magazines and journals and named in the Forbes 30 Under 30. Some of the clients she has worked with includes Wes Anderson, Dave Eggers, Penguin Books, Tiffany & Co., Nike, Samsung and Apple.
I love the Hische’s illustrations in her books, especially her use of typography. Her bright colours and smooth fonts create a welcoming feeling within her books, ideal for children. Across all her work, a prominent feature is he lack of sharp edges within her type. They are usually smooth and curving, close to calligraphy. This could be a focus in my essay, looking specifically at Hische’s skills with typography or how she incorporates typography and illustration within her books.
Kyle Tezak:
Kyle Tezak is an independent designer and illustrator in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Tezak has worked with all kinds of companies on projects ranging from brand identity and product design to editorial illustration and large icon sets. Some of his clients include Netflix, US Bank, UNICEF, The New York Times and Roche.
As well as professional work for companies, he carries out personal projects. One of these was the Four Icon Challenge where he attempts to break down stories, like books, movies and TV shows, into four icons while keeping the narrative.
As a contemporary designer, I really like Tezak’s style and approach to his work. His wide range of clients shows his skill and adaptability to any subject area. I particularly really enjoyed his Four Icon Challenge. However, I struggled to find information about Tezak himself and the background of his work, so I don’t feel like he’d be my best option for my essay.
Following this research, I have decided to pick Saul Bass as the subject for my essay. While I really liked Hische’s and Tezak’s work, I feel that Bass’ work would provide more information and depth for my essay. I’m really interested in Bass’ link to the film industry and I am considering using this as the main focus to my essay.
Saul Bass Specific Research
MOTION GRAPHICS & FILM TITLES
The language of graphic design was transformed by the integration of type and image with the time-based element of motion to create a new field known as motion graphics.
Artists, painters and filmmakers sought ways to animate objects, create ‘visual music’ and extend the art of storytelling with nonlinear film techniques borrowed from abstract cinema and animation, including painting and scratching directly onto film stock and using stop-motion photography and computers to animate graphics and typographic elements.
The introduction of motion began with experiments in abstract film, animation and avant-garde cinema. The early days of abstract film of ‘pure cinema’ explored personal visions of film and animation in work produced by pioneers such as painter Viking Eggeling and German Dadaist painter Hans Richter, each photography objects a single frame at a time.
Modern feature film titles combining type and image in motion were first created by graphic designer Saul Bass for director Otto Preminger’s film Carmen Jones (1954) and The Man with the Golden Arm (1955). Many titles have followed, created by many designers and filmmakers who have transformed the way information is communicated.
Designer Maurice Binder (1925-91) created classic openings for James Bond films beginning with Dr.No (1962). He was succeeded by Daniel Kleinman (b.1955) for Golden Eye (1995).
Animator and filmmaker Terry Gilliam (b.1940) designed all of Monty Pythons opening credits as well as title sequences for some films he directed, including Brazil (1985).
Imaginary Forces was launched in 1996 by Kyle Cooper (b.1962), Chip Houghton and Peter Frankfurt (b.1958). It rapidly entered the vanguard of film-title design by integrating graphic design, motion, and interactive media.
~MEGG’s History of Graphic Design: Part 24 The Revolution and Beyond
ABOUT SAUL BASS
He was a prominent American graphic designer of the 20th century. He largely designed motion picture title sequences, corporate logos and movie posters and a pioneer of the modern title sequence designing.
Four decades of a successful career in his lifetime, winning Academy Awards for his exquisite graphic designing. His iconic title sequences appeared in the popular films, The Man with the Golden Arm, Psycho, and North by Northwest.
Born on May 8, 1920 in Bronx, New York into a family of Eastern European Jewish immigrants. He attended the James Monroe High School, where he also graduated from. In 1936, he received a fellowship to the Art Students League in Manhattan. Then went onto study at Brooklyn College. After his studies, he worked as a freelancer for several advertising companies and agencies, including Warner Bros.
He moved to Los Angeles, where he pursued graphic designing as a commercial artist. During the 1940s, he took up some Hollywood projects, which involved print work for promotional purposes. Bass started his own practice in 1952 and a few years later established his private firm as Saul Bass & Associates.
Title Sequences…
Bass has his big break as he was offered a job by filmmaker Otto Preminger to design a poster for Carmen Jones, in 1954. His work left a remarkable impression on Preminger, who availed of his expertise yet again for his film’s title sequences. This opportunity came with the realisation that the title sequence can not only be served as mere static credits but can enhance the watching experience of the audience. Bass realised the potential of title sequences if incorporated with the right audio and visual sequence can help set the mood and theme at the opening of a film.
After his debut work in Hollywood, he worked for several reputable production houses. In 1955, he produced the title sequence for The Seven Year Itch. However, he didn’t earn his reputation in Hollywood until he made his contribution to Preminger’s The Man with the Golden Arm (1955). The film focused on a musician’s struggle to defeat his heroine addiction. As to underline the intensity of the then tabooed subject, he featured an animated paper cut-out arm in the film title which had a sensational effect on the audience.
Another notable filmmaker, Alfred Hitchcock, brought him on board for the title designing of his films. Bass developed iconic, influential and noteworthy title sequences employing distinguished kinetic typography for motion pictures, including North by Northwest (1959), Vertigo (1960) and Psycho (1960).
Bass was the first to introduce this technique in Hollywood films which previously employed static titles. He regarded title sequence designing as an art with its unique process. His creation was based on the philosophy of enlightening the audience about the subject of the film and invoking their emotions accordingly.
Another one of his philosophies stresses on rendering the ordinary, extraordinary, by acquainting the audience with familiar objects in an unfamiliar way. His graphic work in Walk on the Wild Side (1962) and Nine Hours to Rama (1963) are the epitome of this philosophy. The former features an ordinary car as a dangerous predatory creature and the latter represents the internal mechanism of a clock embodying a large landscape. Some of his other popular title sequence creations include Spartacus, The Age of Innocence, The Shining and Casino.
~www.famousgraphicdesigners.org/saul-bass
KINETIC TYPOGRAHY
Kinetic typography seems to be everywhere, from TV commercials to website landing pages, movable type is a visual tool. Its popularity comes from a number of reasons, but the main one is that it catches your attention. People tend to be drawn to words and want to read them. It puts this together with some simple animations to create words that move on screen, grabbing your attention and engaging the senses.
Kinetic typography refers to the creation of movable type. It is an animation technique that is used to make lettering expand, shrink, fly, move in slow motion, grow and change in numerous ways for the user. The effect can be simple and short with only small changes or quite elaborate and lengthly.
It is used to add emphasis to certain content. It can help convey tone and emotion and create a unique visual where none exists. It can be an affordable option for those with limited budget.
The first example of it being used was on the big screen. The first use of kinetic typography to the 1959 Alfred Hitchcock film North by Northwest. In the opening credits, type is used in a movable format. A year later, the effect was used again in ‘Psycho’.
“This work stemmed in part from a desire to have the opening credits set the stage for the film by establishing a mood, rather than simply conveying the information of the credits” -researchers Johnny C.Lee, Jodi Forlizzi, Scott E.Hudson
~designshack.net/articles/typography/kinetic-typography-an-introductory-guide/
SAUL BASS & KINETIC TYPOGRAPHY
“Design is thinking made visual” -Saul Bass
While animation pioneers like Georges Méliès and Walt Disney paved the way in the early 20th century for later filmmakers to infuse inanimate live-action objects with new energies, it was Saul Bass who first realised their potential in modern film.
Bass, a graphic designer by trade, is credited with overseeing the first extensive use of kinetic typography in film, particularly in connection with Alfred Hitchcock’s film North by Northwest. Bass would ultimately go onto, over the course of his career, to provide visual design on some go the most famous films of the century under industry greats like Alfred Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese.
He is perhaps most acclaimed, especially in respect to kinetic typography, for his work on North by Northwest, but it was far from the only film in which he used the technique. In the three year period between 1958 and 1960, Hitchcock released as many films: Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959) and Psycho (1960). The opening sequences of all three bear the distinctive imprint of Bass’ work.
About the Sequences…
Vertigo:
Saul Bass offered the audiences of the day their first glimpse of ‘dynamic layout’, where textual elements in a frame move, as a unit, either in relation to one another or to the frame itself. Motivated by his personal desire to use the opening moments of films, which had until that point been given over to relatively staid title cards, to create an emotional hook with which to engage the audience immediately.
The dramatic tension, already primed by the film’s title, itself a frightening condition, is ratcheted by an intense close-up shot of actress Kim Novak’s eyes, an unsettling score, and, without warning, the names of the principals appearing to fly in from just in Novak’s eye. Her eyes rapidly dilate as if with fear, reflecting a sense of powerlessness she is experiencing at some terror out of frame. At the conclusion of the sequence, Hitchcock’s name appears to come spiralling out from her eye, adding to the suspense and anxiety being created for the audience.
North by Northwest:
Bass’ work improves dramatically on the dynamic motion presented in the opening to Vertigo. Overlaid on a green-and-blue wireframe background, the names of the principals come racing in from all sides of the frame to the sounds of a frenetic soundtrack. Soldi rectangular shapes, fly up in and out of the frame along the side of the building in time with the names. The wireframe background begins to dissolve, revealing a side of a NYC office building that is reflecting distorted images of the activity on the streets below. The action continues during a brief transition to ground level, where blocks of text fly in from the sides across images of bustling commuters, culminating in Hitchcock’s name appearing to narrowly avoid being hit by a bus.
Psycho:
This opening sequence uses kinetic typography effects to induce anxiety. Set to a choppy strings-only score that sounds if it is threatening to careen out of control into complete tonal dissonance at any moment, Bass’ opening sequence combines the subtypes of the two previous films with a serial-presentation format.
While the text is static, providing only the flimsiest illusion of dynamism by the segmented wipes Bass employs, a more careful examination revels that the precision of his technique in fact gives the appearance of horizontal slices of the letters being carried in and out of frame by the very same segmented wipes. Bass periodically halts the sweeping motion of the wipes to break the apparently static letters on the screen into horizontal slices, as with the wipes, to manipulate the individual slices independent of their original letterforms.
~kinetictypography.dreshfield.com/post/22151393003/saul-bass
BASS & HITCHCOCK
According to Al Kallis, who worked with Bass for several years during the 1950s, Bass conceptualised the layout and design, while Kallis drew the art and Maury Nemoy handled the typography and calligraphy. Another steady collaborator on film titles was Harold Adler, who created lettering for Carmen Jones, Man with the Golden Arm, The Seven Year Itch and the Hitchcock titles.
Bass worked as a visual consultant for Hitchcock. He designed the credit sequences for Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959) and Psycho (1960), cementing his reputation as a gifted auteur of titles. Even if the megalomaniacal Hitchcock was unwilling to give the designer credit for his role in conceptualising the shocking shower sequence. Bass created the storyboards and designed the editing of the shower sequence, and he may even directed some setups, but Hitchcock infamously downplayed Bass’ contribution.
~Saul Bass: Anatomy of Film Design by Jan-Christopher Horak
BASS & LOGO DESIGN
“The man who changed graphic design”
Saul Bass might be the single most accomplished graphic designer in history. He branded a staggering array of major corporations with his iconic minimal designs. Bass designed for Bell, Kleenex and AT&T, creating clean, thoughtful designs for each. Logo design is not all Bass is known for. In fact, logos form the lesser part of Bass’ artistic legacy.
“Logos made to last”
The average lifespan of a Saul Bass logo is a whopping 34 years. Some have yet to be replaced like designs for Warner Communications (1972) and Kibun (1964).
~99designs.co.uk/blog/famous-design/saul-bass-graphic-design-of-a-century/
SAUL BASS: THE MAN BEHIND THE TITLES
Although he only made one feature, his innovative work across numerous films genuinely helped redefine motion pictures. In the beginning, film titles universally looked like an official presentation of legal and copyright information which evolved into handsome, static slates presenting cast and crew.
He was a graphic designer who created symbols for movie ad campaigns but in the mid-1950s he worked on two projects for director Otto Preminger. Bass described it as: “During that period, I happened to be working on the symbols for Carmen Jones and Man with the Golden Arm. And at one point in our work, Otto and I just looked at each other and said ‘Why not make it move?’ and it was really as simple as that.”
Instead of generic titles that eased audiences into their seats, Bass wanted the movie experience to take shape from the very first frame of film. “To actually create a climate for the story that was about to unfold.”
Bass often worked with in collaboration with his wife Elaine, creating mini-masterpieces, establishing mood, tone and texture for the films to come. Whether using simple graphics, lines, text, photographic elements or delving into inventive animation, Bass could symbolise and summarise a film’s essence: in West Side Story the graffiti titles visualise its street vitality and location, Vertigo with its swirling vortexes and Psycho’s fractured typefaces mirror the twisted desires and splintered personalities within Hitchcock’s stories of dark desires. In Seconds, disturbing and distorted facial close ups embody its sinister tale of body transformation.
