For Paul Rand's posthumous induction into The One Club's Hall of Fame for 2007, we created a short film, combining original animation with a videotaped interview of Rand himself, that encapsulated his unique and timeless contribution to the design community.
Inspired by Saul Bass
Day to day people go unnoticed. It’s only really when you look around that you are able to appreciate what a difference people can make. It’s the finer things, the subtle differences that change the way we think and subliminally inspire.
There are many different methods and techniques that professionals operate to project a message, be it through television or billboards, magazines or a book. It can be something that is easily disregarded as an after thought but every single design element or effect introduced is a part of this and is there to leave an impression. Finding new, exciting original ways to carry out this however is getting harder as products are striving to find that something new.
Some people say it’s next to impossible to be original because everything has already been tried and tested but when there’s a will, there’s a way. Most people wont of heard of Tim Berners-Lee. This is the man who opened pathways to billions of people by inventing something called the World Wide Web in 1989. Obviously this is a rather extreme example but all the same, either a life changing idea or a small adjustment can make a big difference.
Another inspirational guru is a man called Saul Bass; he was an American graphic designer turned film title designer who almost single handedly changed the way films were interpreted by working with Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger and Martin Scorses. Before this the film titles were so boring the audience would not see them and the curtain would not be opened until they were over. When the reels of film for Otto Preminger’s controversial new drugs movie, The Man with the Golden Arm, arrived at US movie theatres in 1955, a note was stuck on the cans "Projectionists – pull curtain before titles"
Preminger wanted the movie titles to be an integral part of the film and with Saul Bass designing; they soon became a whole new window of opportunity to work with. Over his life he created over 50 title sequences for Preminger, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, John Frankenheimer and Martin Scorsese. To younger film directors, Saul Bass was a cinema legend with whom they longed to work with.
Saul Bass died in 1996. His New York Times obituary hailed him as "the minimalist auteur who put a jagged arm in motion in 1955 and created an entire film genre…and elevated it into an art."
Paul Robinson
