Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Architect of Film: Saul Bass, Title Design for "Psycho" [1960]

In this, possibly his most famous design for titles, Saul Bass brilliantly captures the frightfully fractured sensibility at the heart of the movie. Simple horizontal bands are tugged in opposite directions to undermine the calm of the background and the cool regularity of the familiar Helvetica text to illustrate the fragmented mindset of the protagonist, (and possibly even his shattered victim).  

With a sly, easily missed, detail, Bass's own name is shown flying in the opposite direction of his peers in the frames attributing Art Direction and Photography.