Saul Bass Star Wars and Portable Creativity

By Hackworth on March 4, 2008 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Is Bass spinning in his grave? He has said that he was disappointed in his Man with the Golden Arm title sequence after it was so imitated.

What is so interesting about Bass is how he established a way of working in a new media (motion graphics) by using his formal training as a commercial artist (today's graphic designer). The work shown above is part of not just an identifiable school of work, but as a larger culture of remixing. The democratic nature of the creation, access and distribution fundamentally changes how previous disciplines can be compared to the new media of YouTube.

While Bass channeled the printed page onto the movie screen, mash-up artists channel something akin to the East Coast hip-hop of the 70s and 80s. Democratic distribution, combined with the mixing of other work to create something new. However, while the distribution is democratic, is may not be so universally accessible. By this I mean there are varying levels of appreciation of the work. Something like the Saul Bass Star Wars has the Star Wars imagery, rendered in a surprising way, which appeals to a large audience. However, the knowledge of Bass' work gives the viewer not only the opportunity to dig up his knowledge of this work, but also to seek out new understanding of dusty content. Whether it makes you pull up a wikipedia page, or go searching for vinyl, its a similar exercise in esoteric danceability.

So whereas Bass made film titles based on the principles of the printed page (while taking advantage of the new medium's expressive properties of motion), Mashup artists remix based on the principles of hip-hop, while taking advantage of the Internet's abillity to both pique and satiate curiosity at the same time. Some later Bass work (post-computers, but pre-Youtube):

Cape fear: