Quotes from Saul Bass

In the course of our daily lives, we're bombarded with a barrage of visual messages, some blatantly aggressive, some subtle. The trick is to find a way to break through without adding to the clutter and the ugliness. We have to be responsible about that.

A new 'look' for any organization cannot be a papier-mache cover, tacked on with Scotch tape under the heading of 'beautification.' It has to be based on a probing examination of the company and the people who work for it. As a result, the eventual external visual design becomes the graphic extension of the internal realities of a company.

The average individual lives in a high impact, complex, visual environment.

No artist wants to be perceived as a regurgitator.

Corporate identity deals with how a company is perceived. When you're working for a company, you try to determine what the optimum perception of them should be and develop a set of objectives that often take the form of reinforcing what's there that's perceived to be desirable and finding a way of dealing with misperceptions.

I want to make beautiful things, even if nobody cares.

To engage in downright plagiarism is disappointing. It's cynical, opportunistic and hypocritical.

Whether or not you believe in God, you can probably sign on to the idea that being kind to others is divine. Just remember to include yourself in that circle of kindness.

My view... was that something could happen during the credits that could help the film, so that the establishing shots aren't carrying the total burden.

The only way I work as a designer is to consciously avoid specialisation.

All fliers have some concern about flying. Some handle it by 'flying' the plane. They're 'raising' the wheels, 'making' the turns and so on. Others handle it by tuning out... reading a book or watching a movie.

The key to industrial leadership is technology and design; of the two, technology is quantifiable and design is not. Technological improvements might make your product worth another $20. If you design something beautiful, what is that worth? It's worth whatever people will pay for it.

Somewhere down the line, I felt the need to come to grips with the realistic - or live action - image which seemed to me central to the notion of film. And then a whole new world opened to me.

I began as a graphic designer. As part of my work, I created film symbols for ad campaigns. I happened to be working on the symbols for Otto Preminger's 'Carmen Jones' and 'The Man With The Golden Arm' and at some point, Otto and I just looked at each other and said, 'Why not make it move?' It was as simple as that.

My position was that the film begins with the first frame and that the film should be doing a job at that point.

The products people like best start with function and wind up with look.

A product is often a consumer's only window to a corporation.

I work on the assumption that in the crowded mass communication field today you have to get in and get out with your message as quickly and simply as possible. You must communicate the maximum with a single glance.

I shattered the notion that a movie had to be advertised with realistic elements from the story.

My work on titles was a marvelous opportunity to learn about filmmaking. I think I touched on just about every aspect of the process, both creative and technical. And I worked with many wonderful people.

Dishonesty in trailers is more than a moral issue, it's a practical one. If you don't deliver in the film what you offered in the trailer, you'll get bad word-of-mouth.

In 'Cape Fear,' all that water and the reflections and these threatening and submerged images in the water - that signals the awfulness that is to come. We're very good at awfulness. No, really, we do do some sweet titles, too.

Way back in the beginning, I would say in the 20s, when titles were first being treated for films, there was a lot of crazy stuff going on. Everybody was inventing. There were no conventions. Everything was up for grabs.

Design is thinking made visible.