Typography Brief

Saul Bass

Saul Bass was one of the most prominent graphic designers in the 20th century, designing film posters, corporate logos and more. Born in the Bronx, NY 1920, Bass grew up in a household of Eastern European Jewish immigrants. After attending art school in 1936, Bass and his design career began to slowly take off, as he began working for several advertising agencies. However it wasn't until 1954 when he was hired to design a poster for "Carmen Jones" that his career sky rocketed. He left a remarkable impression on the Hollywood film industry and in 1955 designed the "Man with the golden arm" poster, one of the most iconic film posters of the century. It was his unique style, that uses the tool of simplicity, in order to create posters and designs which whilst being visually eye catching and interesting, they convey the message/subject of his client perfectly. Each design is as intriguing as the film itself, leaving the viewer to question the film/client he portrays, claiming he tries to "portray the ordinary in an extraordinary way".

Saul Bass' poster examples

Colour: To begin, Bass consistently uses few colours in his work, no more than 3 at a time. This way the posters remain bold and clear to the reader. However the choice of colours used are therefore crucial, usually remaining fairly muted and clean, once again to attract his posters through the beauty of simplicity.

Text: Another crucial element of Bass' style is the way in which he consistently integrates the text into his work. Considering this brief is a typography one, this is one of the most important elements I must pick up on. In almost all of his posters, the text adds to the actual graphic design, in order to portray the information both textually and artistically. It is this balance created, that makes his work so successful, being both practical and beautiful in displaying information.

Composition: It is clear that Bass has mastered how to create an eye catching composition. Most importantly, from afar it is the graphic that first grabs the viewers attention and interest, therefore it is crucial for each graphic used to be a perfect representation of the film/client. This way, Bass can add the text/information towards the side in smaller print, as he is aware that the viewer is already interested in whatever is being displayed purely through the graphic, and its integration with the films name etc.

My client:

Leon Ware is a jazz musician who while alongside having a very successful solo career, is also responsible for producing many hit songs from the likes of Michael Jackson, Marvin Gaye etc. From the beginning of his career in the early 70s, Ware was tied to Motown record label, the most successful jazz/rnb label of all time. Unfortunately however, Ware died in 2017, at 77 years old.

Wares legacy however lives on, and is celebrated not just by fans of rnb and jazz, but largely hip-hop too, after many of his records were sampled during the 90s, landing him fame in multiple genres. As a way to celebrate the legacy left behind by many of their artists, Motown have a museum in Detriot, a destination to bring together ideas and opinions from many different generations. As a result I would like my client to be Motown Museum, asking me to design a poster to advertise a Leon Ware exhibition which would feature his lifetimes work, in celebration of his career.

The plan:

When choosing where to begin with my poster, I knew that like Saul Bass, I wanted my poster to revolve around it's simplicity. I also knew that I wanted my text to form the shape of "Leon Ware", just as many of Saul Bass' works use lettering to either form or integrate into the subject. However, I knew that Saul Bass' style was too distinctive to himself, and therefore whilst using him as inspiration and following his views on typograhpic design, I wanted to use much of my own style to almost modernise his style.

I split the process into 3 separate parts:

Physical plan/ reference
Adobe illustrator recreation of design
Photoshop finishing touches (colour choice, layout, information)

The poster

For my poster I decided to use a two colour design, to remain true to the simplicity I was trying to achieve. I felt the salmon pink stood out really nicely against the green, as whilst being visible and easy to read, the design still managed to appear playful and intriguing.

Another design feature/choice I had to consider whilst creating the poster was the actual fonts used to display the information. Immediately I knew that I wanted to use a playful almost bubbly font, as it matched with the actual design of the Jazz musician I had made. However it was difficult to find a balance between style and practicality as I knew that if simplicity was to be my main goal, then I would have to use a more minimal font. Eventually I found the Berlinerins font, which I felt drew the balance perfectly, being clear yet playful, and most importantly it didn't take away from the main design.

Overall I think this poster was succesful in capturing many of the elements used by Bass such as simplicity and the seemless incorporation of typography and subject. If I was to try it again however, I would like to use a differnt silhouette and try to incorporate many words into one design.

The process

Part 1 (Physical design):

This was my original plan for the poster, deciding on the main graphic and focal point of the poster. I decided a silhouette of Leon Ware was to be created using his name in bubble writing as blocks of the entire graphic.

Once I had decided on my design, I perfected it on A3 paper, getting the silhoutte down first. Followed by working out how I was to implement each letter, working through the silhouette as if it were a puzzle.

Once I was happy with my design, I had to scan it in, in order to have a perfectly flat design to upload and use as a reference. The scanner only scanned A4, so I had to scan 2 halves of the design and then use photoshop to stitch both images together.

Part 2 (Adobe illustrator):

Once I had uploaded my scan of the design into illustrator, I began the process of tracing around the drawing with the pen tool. Whilst this was relatively easy, I couldn't follow the design line for line, as it was just a rough sketch to use as a reference.

One of the more difficult parts of my design was making the trumpet, as took much time to choose how and where it would be placed, held and intergrated into the text. At first I tried a saxaphone, however I decided the trumpet looked better due to it's size and details.

As I continued with my design I had to make continual adjustments to each letter, going back and forth, as it was crucial each letter whilst creating the overall silhouette, was clear and easily readable. Once I had reached the end, I tidied up the overall design through adjusting the width of certain lines, etc.

Part 3 (Adobe photoshop):

To begin, I started with the text that was to be placed along the side of my main graphic. I knew it had to be informative yet not lengthy in order to work perfectly as a poster. The font was a hard choice as it seemed nothing worked with the design, however I found the font Berliners which struck the balance between playful and clear that I felt was necessary. It is also important to note that I used the parralelism of the design to place my font, with the "Spring 2023" being placed on the invisible line that seperates the trumpet in two.

The next crucial crucial choice was the colour scheme. As stated previously, I knew I had to use a simple 2 colour scheme in order to commit to the simple design. Whilst choosing the colours was difficult, I knew what I was looking for, as I didn't want it to be too dull yet the function of the poster at the end of the day was to convey as much information as possible. Therfore I felt like bold yet muted colours would work perfectly, with the salmon pink and pine green both complementing one another making it clear to read, whilst also being visually pleasing.

The final element which I feels ties the entire design together, was the details added to the bottom right. I added the motown museum website link, which meant that I didn't have to put all my information on the poster as anyone who was interested could easily find out online. Additionally, I added the motown record label logo, which is iconinc in many genres of music, so added a level of proffesionality to the final design and also would immediately catch the attention of anyone who was already aware/ interested as Motown Records.

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