Saul Bass

Few did as much to alter the aesthetics of commercial and popular culture in the second half of the 20th century than Saul Bass. A New York-born graphic designer, Bass broke with the industry's standardized text-based opening credits template to create an iconic animated opening sequence for Otto Preminger's film "The Man with the Golden Arm" (1955). He went on to compose similarly stylized intro/poster combos for a number of Preminger films and become a go-to design man for directors of Hollywood's prestige films, including Hitchcock's "Vertigo" (1958) and "Psycho" (1960) and Kubrick's "Spartacus" (1958). He went behind the camera and ultimately earned an Oscar for his animated documentary film "Why Man Creates" (1968), and in 1974, directed his only feature film, the sci-fi outing "Phase IV." Bass' corporate work would shape a multitude of brand imprints for a Who's Who of corporate America, and he returned to film title design in the 1980s and 1990s, notably in a run of films by Martin Scorcese. Emulated in countless entertainment graphics - including more recent opening sequences of Steven Spielberg's "Catch Me If You Can" (2002) and AMC's Emmy-darling series "Mad Men" (2008- ) - Bass did more than just alter the look of film, Scorcese suggested in the book "Saul Bass: A Life in Film and Design, he "found and distilled the poetry of the modern, industrialized world."