Saul Bass

Saul Bass (May 8, 1920 – April 25, 1996) was an American graphic designer and Oscar-winning filmmaker, best known for his design of motion-picture title sequences, film posters, and corporate logos.

During his 40-year career, Bass worked for some of Hollywood's most prominent filmmakers, including Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger, Billy Wilder, Stanley Kubrick, and Martin Scorsese. Among his best known title sequences are the animated paper cut-out of a heroin addict's arm for Preminger's The Man with the Golden Arm, the credits racing up and down what eventually becomes a high-angle shot of a skyscraper in Hitchcock's North by Northwest, and the disjointed text that races together and apart in Psycho.

Bass designed some of the most iconic corporate logos in North America, including the Geffen Records logo in 1980, the Hanna-Barbera "swirling star" logo in 1979, the sixth and final version of the Bell System logo in 1969, as well as AT&T Corporation's first globe logo in 1983 after the breakup of the Bell System. He also designed Continental Airlines' 1968 jet stream logo, United Airlines' 1974 tulip logo (which became some of the most recognized airline industry logos of the era) and the 1972 Warner Bros. "Big W" logo (which is WB's second most recognizable logo after the classic WB shield; currently also used as the Warner Music Group logo). He died from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in Los Angeles on April 25, 1996, at the age of 75.