Design Literacy: Understanding Graphic Design

all aspects of a movie should fit together like pieces of a puzzle. “In every
title I’ve done, I’ve been very conscious of the fact that the title has a
responsibility to the film, that it is there to enhance the film, to set it up, to
give it a beginning—and not to overpower and preempt it,” he asserted in
Print. For Bass the title was only the beginning of something, never the
thing itself.
He continued making title sequences for four decades, many as
memorable as the films themselves. And his work evolved from “mood-
setting” animation into what he called “metaphorical live action” in Walk on
the Wild Side( 1962 ), where a black cat and a white cat meet, have a fight,
and then part, as a metaphor for New Orleans street life. Later he
pioneered the film prologue with John Frankenheimer’s Grand Prix( 1966 ),
for which Bass traveled around the world directing camera crews in the
shooting of racing sequences.
Forty years after challenging the studio’s conventions and taboos,
creative movie title sequences are facts of motion picture history. Indeed
every designer who has ever designed film titles owes a debt to Bass. As a
coda to the breadth of his influence, in 1995 director Spike Lee paid
dubious homage when he copied Bass’s logo for Anatomy of Murderas the
print graphic for his own film,Clockers. Although Bass did not appreciate
the larceny, it vividly illustrated the extent of Bass’s contribution to the
movie industry.