The first book dedicated to Saul Bass, one of the great American designers, produced by Jennifer Bass (Saul’s daughter) and Pat Kirkham.
“…before we worked together, he was a legend in my eyes. His designs, for film titles and company logos and record albums and posters, defined an era.”
— Martin Scorsese
The following paragraph is from the press release. It’s followed by a few snapshots of the content and a short film of the print process.
“Saul Bass (1920-1996) created some of the most compelling images of American postwar visual culture. Having extended the remit of graphic design to include film titles, he went on to transform the genre. 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 and Anatomy of a Murder. He also created some of the most memorable logos and corporate identity campaigns of the century, including those for major companies such as AT&T, Quaker Oats, United Airlines, and Minolta.”
Studio portrait, the Bronx. c. 1931
Tone Poems of Color (album cover, 1956)
Manufacturers National Bank (selection of ads, 1960-61)
San Francisco International Film Festival (seventh festival poster, 1963)
Frank Holmes Laboratories, Inc. (trademark, 1954)
Ceramic tiles (sculptured tile designs, 1957-58)
Playhouse 90, CBS (opening sequence, 1956)
The Man with the Golden Arm (poster, 1955)
North by Northwest (title sequence frames, 1959)
Psycho (title sequence frames, 1960)
Celanese (trademark and style manual, 1966)
Saul with staff members (Bell System identity, 1969)
Here’s a brief insight of the Saul Bass printing process.
1,484 illustrations
290 x 258mm
440 pages
Hardback
Purchase Saul Bass: A Life in Film & Design from Laurence King or:
on Amazon.com
on Amazon.co.uk
on Amazon.ca
A couple of short excerpts are over on Logo Design Love:
todd sledzik11 November 2011
On a related note, if anyone hasn't seen many Alfred Hitchcock flicks, I would recommend Rear Window and NxNW as my favorites. Just wonderful films. Saul and Hitchcock, probably both ahead of their time.
Mark Narusson12 November 2011
Hi David. I did see that this book was now available, so good to hear someone of your caliber is praising it. I love his work and it seems fitting that it has now been put into a book like this. I shall certainly put it on my Xmas list.
dave blackburn14 November 2011
A good video David, I had never heard of Saul before, but do recognise his work.
Have to lift my hand up though as not seeing many Alfred Hitchcock films, but that is possibly an age thing.
Theo16 November 2011
A must have, thank you for the info!
Matt18 November 2011
I had started to give up hope on a book on Saul Bass. Thank you David for covering it or I would never have known!
Michael21 November 2011
I have been following your posts for some time now. I wonder how do you manage to update your site + Tweets, etc. It seems it is time consuming. When do you have time to work!! Congrats!
Chris20 April 2012
This book was delivered to me the other day & it is absolutely incredible & very well presented.
Definitely a must for graphic designers!
For me Saul Bass is the very best & this book just cemented that for me. If you don't know this man & you see this book you will probably begin to recognise his work all over the place, it's been used time & time again.
Always replicated but never duplicated.
Stewart1 December 2012
This looks lovely. Can't wait to get my mitts on it. Thanks for a timely article.