Saul Bass designed emblematic movie posters that transformed the visuals of film advertising. Before Bass’s seminal poster for The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), movie posters were dominated by depictions of key scenes or characters from the film, often both juxtaposed with each other. Bass’s posters, however, typically developed simplified, symbolic designs that visually communicated key essential elements of the film. For example, his poster for The Man with the Golden Arm, with a jagged arm and off-kilter typography, starkly communicates the protagonist’s struggle with heroin addiction. Bass’s iconic Vertigo (1958) poster, with its stylized figures sucked down into the nucleus of a spiral vortex, captures the anxiety and disorientation central to the film. His poster for Anatomy of a Murder (1959), featuring the silhouette of a corpse jarringly dissected into seven pieces, makes both a pun on the film’s title and captures the moral ambiguities within which this court room drama is immersed.

Project Summary

This is an exercise in style. I have always been a huge fan of Saul Bass even before I knew who he was. Today if you look up his art on line there are countless style copies. It was inevitable that I would make a few of them so I figured I could create a small collection for posterity. These are thematically based on current projects or clients that I have worked with in the past.

Posters - Theatrical

Tools Utilized

ps

Adobe Photoshop

ai

Adobe Illustrator