Graphic Designer - Saul Bass

This poster is a dedication to Saul Bass. He was a graphic designer born in Bronx, New York in 1920. From a young age his artistic abilities were recognized and her received a scholarship to attend art school. He worked for many big name companies but his career as a designer really kicked off when he opened his own studio in LA. Saul Bass is most well known for his movie posters and title sequences. It was said that before Saul Bass the credits at the beginning of the movie were not even shown but once he evolved the title sequence into an art form they became an integrated part of the movie. The big name directors for which he design were Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger, and Martin Scorsese. During a brief break from the Hollywood scene Bass made his impact on logo design creating the well known Girl Scouts logo, AT&T globe, and Dixie logo as well as numerous others which are still used today.  

Saul Bass works primarily with text and images. His style includes usually black text on plain background with only one color. It has a very cut and paste feeling to it. The font of the text he uses is very important and often has a very hand written quality to it. Bass uses lots of big bold designs and is fairly simplistic in his designs. He also uses a variety of silhouettes. 

Check out some Saul Bass movie posters here.

I chose Saul Bass because I like his simplicity. He let the title speak for itself while enhancing its meaning through a simple image. The image is just decorative at first but after seeing the movie it represents it actually has very symbolic meaning. I liked the colors he used as well. 

It is important for everyone to learn about Saul Bass because he marked a turning point in design. He opened up an entirely new media for design work as the "Father of Title Sequences." His simple style is the epitome of how you can say a lot with a little. So often people think the more they have the better the work will be but Saul Bass teaches us that having less is a more powerful lesson. His use of font is also notable in complimenting an image well. Saul Bass lacks no talent and knew what people wanted to see. His logos are still used today on our grocery shelves and on television. 

Activism Poster

The assignment for this project was to create a poster for a cause you supported. I am part of Amnesty International and we are currently creating an awareness campaign about human trafficking. My poster depicts a shopping basket and a bar code. The bar code has silhouettes of women who are trapped in between the bars of the barcode. This symbolizes their imprisonment. The basket and barcode are emphasize how slavery is a modern day problem and how for some buying a human is as simple as buying something in the store. This design uses proportion as its primary principle of design. The size difference between the basket and the barcode emphasize the importance of each. Space is the primary element of design because the negative space in between the lines and space create the powerful message I was trying to get across. This poster also has harmony because the basket and barcode are both black and white and both use simple shapes to convey a strong message. When planning my poster I was inspired by the image below which shows how people are still in chains and its a modern and international problem. I wanted to keep my design simple with few words to keep my message strong. 

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