Saul Bass was an American film designer active from 1920 to 1996. He is known for revolutionizing film title sequences through his development of kinetic typography. Some of his most famous title sequences used animated white lines on a black screen to reveal the film title, a novel approach at a time when titles were simply projected on theater curtains. Bass spent 40 years designing title sequences for over 100 films, helping to establish the title sequence as an art form that could set the tone and provide crucial exposition for the film.

1. Saul Bass
HOW HE MORPHED TITLE SEQUENCES

2. Who Saul Bass is
• Saul was an American film designer who’s lifespan was from May
8, 1920 to April 25, 1996.
• He studied part-time at the Art Students League in Manhattan,
New York.
• He had spend 40 years working on film title sequences within
the Hollywood film industry, making the title sequences of films
such as: Walk On The Wild Side, North By Northwest, The Man
With The Golden Arm etc.
• He was one of the first to create a new type of typography called
Kinetic Typography, which is what had made him one of the
most favoured title sequences designers of his time.

3. Some of Saul Bass’s work:

4. Famous quote: “Design is thinking made visual”

5. The Man With The Golden Arm (1955)
The Opening begins with a white line appearing on the front of a black screen, which then leads
to many more lines appearing on the same black screen. They appear to have a square shape
between them that the film title is shown within.
In modern day standards this may seem to be no more than the average title sequence opening,
however this is in an era where title sequences would have merely been projected onto the
curtains before the film; It wasn’t actually added to the film at all. Therefore for a title sequence
like this to have been able to created when certain ideas where unheard of is truly revolutionary.