The Life and Design of Saul Bass
This book is a coffee table book concept that pays homage to one of my design heroes, the great Saul Bass. His style and work inspires me always in design, and was definitely the main driver for the style I wanted to achieve for this book.
The Challenge
To create a coffee table book about a designer I admire, and create it with their style in mind. Saul Bass had such an iconic style, and I knew I needed to incorporate his style in the book, but also not to the point where it’s just a copy and paste of his designs.
The Goal
The goal for creating the book would be to organize bodies of text in a way that is easy for the reader while also incorporating little elements inspired by Saul Bass and his unique style.
Target Audience
The target audience would really be anyone who is a fan of Saul Bass, and is wanting to learn more about him and his work. This book is also meant to introduce people to his work if they aren't familiar with him.
Process
To start off this project, I began to gather pieces of Saul’s work like his posters, logos, film sequences, and color palettes he used. The first part I chose to tackle was the cover, so I started cranking out sketches and concepts.
After some sketching, and brainstorming I decided that my strongest option would be the sketch that read “The Life and Design of Saul Bass”. There was a nice balance to the design, and it would give me a chance to feature arms illustrated in the style of Saul Bass. I was inspired by the unique shape of the arm he used for his iconic cover of The Man With the Golden Arm, so I recreated arms in that style to incorporate on the cover. I then scanned in my sketch to vectorize and add color.
Now that I had a solid book cover to work with, I then began sketching out layouts for pages and spreads for the book. These would only be a rough outline for how I would place my text, and how the graphic elements would be placed on the page.
I chose to stick to a simple grid, and let the illustrations play off the text on each page. For headlines, it felt only right to use a style of text that Saul Bass used frequently, mostly in his work with Alfred Hitchcock.
Solution
Once I had all my assets and text organized for the pages in the book, I wanted to add a little more to the buyer’s experience. I chose to design a Saul Bass shirt and buttons to go along with the book. After all, I knew I had always wanted a Saul Bass shirt, and I was hoping other fans could appreciate one as well. In addition to these printed materials, I was inspired to create an animated GIF of the book cover I designed. It felt only right to animate it in the spirit of Saul Bass.
Reflection
It was a great experience to get the opportunity to design something inspired by a design hero of mine. It was interesting learning to add the right amount of Saul Bass’ style and mix it with mine to create something that still felt unique. Throughout this project, I learned a lot about organizing text layouts, and even animation. Most of all, I have to give credit to Saul Bass for providing all the inspiration and assets in order to make the book what it is.