All Hallows’ Even Greeting 2008: From Tippi To Type

In honor of my favorite holiday of the entire year, I thought I would revive a long-dead blog tradition of mine: The Designed Holiday e-Greeting. However, I also decided to mix the tradition up a bit in this most recent incarnation by adding actual informational content to accompany the image, which will hopefully be interesting to at least a few other people besides myself.

This year, since my avian friends have for many months now been a fixture in my daily life as well as a minor consumerist obsession, I thought I would begin with the classic film poster artwork of Tippi Hedren’s terror in Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds”. Satisfied with the artwork I “acquired”, but not at all with its accompanying typography (which was neither as ominous nor as “Halloween-y” as I desired), I began researching the typographical elements of other Hitchcock films, as well, and suddenly stumbled across perhaps one of the best life stories ever of “Graphic Designer Meets Film Industry”: that of Saul Bass.

Saul Bass (1920-1996) was not only one of the great graphic designers of the mid-20th century but the undisputed master of film title design thanks to his collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger, and Martin Scorsese.

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”.

Until then, the lists of cast and crew members which passed for movie titles were so dull that projectionists only pulled back the curtains to reveal the screen once they’d finished. But Preminger wanted his audience to see “The Man With The Golden Arm’s” titles as an integral part of the film.

The movie’s theme was the struggle of its hero — a jazz musician played by Frank Sinatra — to overcome his heroin addiction. Designed by the graphic designer Saul Bass, the titles featured an animated black paper-cut-out of a heroin addict’s arm. Knowing that the arm was a powerful image of addiction, Bass had chosen it — rather than Frank Sinatra’s famous face — as the symbol of both the movie’s titles and its promotional poster.

That cut-out arm caused a sensation, and Saul Bass reinvented the movie title as an art form.

— Design Museum London

I love this story not only because Bass remains a permanent fixture in Atherton Bartelby’s Pantheon Of Graphic Designers, nor because truly stunningly designed film titles are not at all dissimilar to aphrodisiacs for me, but because Bass’ design style and influence are still felt to this very day, on a media platform even more modern than that of film when Bass first started his career: the internet.

In September of 2007, the online typography journal Typographica published a piece describing the history of saulbass.net, which was for a long time “the most popular online destination for devotees of the great designer and film title director”, and heralding the site’s relaunch (again by original creator Brendan Dawes) at saulbass.tv. The same article also thankfully hosts downloads of designer Matt Terich’s “Hitchcock: A Saul Bass Font”. Of the typeface, Typographica noted, “We hope he’ll add alternates to help it better emulate hand lettering. In the meantime, this version will suffice for the hobbyist when used with care and at smaller sizes.” And suffice it did, for this particular Designer/Writer’s All Hallows’ Even Greeting Of 2008.

So read up on designer Saul Bass’ life, work, and influence via the links provided below, if you are interested, visit Typographica to try out Matt Terich’s Hitchcock font, and, if you happen to find that you still cannot get enough of The Bass Effect, you may even treat yourself to the free Vertigo Tumblr Theme designed by Matthew Buchanan. It’s pretty stunning. I’m sure Bass would be pleased.

And I do hope you are dressed up today! I am: as an employed writer!

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Author’s Recommended Links:

• Saul Bass: Graphic Designer [Design Museum London]
• Saul Bass Website And “Hitchcock” Font Are Back [Typographica]
• Saul Bass On The Web [Brendan Dawes]
• Vertigo Tumblr Theme [Matthew Buchanan]

Filed under: Art, Blogging, Design, Film, Net Culture, Typography, Web Design , celebrities, egreetings, humor, linkage, lists