Saul Bass's 'Vertigo' Poster, 1958
Saul Bass and Vertigo Poster Critique
Saul Bass was a graphic designer and animator, who turned music sequences into a graphic design art form. Bass's collaboration with the famous director, Alfred Hitchcock, for Hitchcock's thriller,'Vertigo', in 1958 helped place Bass as the pioneer of a new pared down style. A style consisting of minimalist and symbolic images. Bass stated that "Design is thinking made visual", and his international typographic style pushed him to the forefront of the "New York School" of design that was taking shape between 1950 and 1970.
The simplisitc design of this poster is shown through the mimimalist features of the man and woman in the center of the poster. The poster for the movie, which stars Jimmy Stewart, who as an ex-cop that is scared of heights and is hired by an old friend to uncover a secret that his wife is keeping from him, displays a dizzying vortex in the middle of the piece. While you look at the poster and you follow the vortex, your eye begins to follow the dizzying path into the vortex. The path leads you into whirling spill to the middle of the poster, where you find a man and a woman.
The subjects intertwined are of a man and a woman falling into the swirling web. The man, who is a black image, seems to be making an effort at catching a falling woman, who is clear or invisible. Perhaps the colors are symbolic, because Stewart's shadowing nemesis is his fear of heights and the path of the woman, Kim Novak, in the movie is undiscovered or mysterious. Maybe Bass is trying to symbolize her mysterious or hidden past in the movie by placing an image that has vague features. I also believe that he used the color of orange in the poster to give off an uncomfortable feeling of heat to a viewer. I believe that he uses orange to convey the intensity that is held throughout the movie.
Bass's typography is distorted and out of focus. Although the words are clear and simple, the typeset is off-kilter, which gives off a delirious feel to the viewer. When I see this poster, I feel that I am going to view a mysterious movie that could be a thriller. I believe that Bass wanted to convey that feeling in not only the poster and but also the movie sequence in order to forewarn people of the a dizzying experience that will be felt throughout the movie.
Bret Dougherty, 9/21/04