On May 8, the Google Doodle honored the 93rd birthday of Saul Bass, a great 20th-century American graphic designer, who created the corporate image and memorably stunning logos for numerous American companies.
Per the website www.bass-saul.com, Saul Bass was, first and foremost a pioneering 1950s Hollywood designer, the founder of conceptual cover design, who created the motion picture title sequences and posters for a great many films.
He developed a simplified, symbolic design language that visually communicated all the essential elements of a film. Bass designed emblematic posters that made a stunning visual impact, thus revolutionizing animated film graphics and the visuals of film advertising.
Google’s “Doodle” is actually a long video created by artist Matthew Cruickshank who had this to day:
I’ve always been interested in the work of Saul Bass and was delighted to get the opportunity to celebrate his birthday on the Google homepage. From the outset I wanted to celebrate a number of his film credits in succinct succession, as well as a nod in the direction of his poster work. Film rights can be problematic so I wasn’t completely sure of the order of cutting, but as it turned out every studio was a pleasure to work with. Corresponding with Jennifer Bass was inspirational and led to hearing that Saul Bass was a Dave Brubeck fan. Although I hadn’t synched animation to music we found a Brubeck track that managed to hit the right notes. Again, the Brubeck estate were superb to work with.
The video features Brubeck’s “Unsquare Dance” which has a snappy beat.
Notable Quotables – Saul Bass
“…yet failure is built into creativity…the creative act involves this element of ‘newness’ and ‘experimentalism,’ then one must expect and accept the possibility of failure…”
“I want everything we do to be beautiful. I don’t give a damn whether the client understands that that’s worth anything, or that the client thinks it’s worth anything, or whether it is worth anything. It’s worth it to me. It’s the way I want to live my life. I want to make beautiful things, even if nobody cares.”
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Thank you, Google for enlightening me this week.
I normally blow by the Doodle to get where I’m heading. This was a nice reminder that I should take a timeout and learn something new off my beaten path.
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[…] There was a really cool Google Doodle in honor of Saul Bass that used Unsquared. Wrote about it here. […]