A PORTFOLIO OF 8 LETTERHEADS BY SAUL BASS

Saul Bass

8.5 x 11 perfect-bound portfolio showcasing 8 printed letterheads designed by Saul Bass, with reproductions of the original letterheads and short accompanying essays by Bass on his approach to his redesigns. Each original sheet of letterhead was printed especially for this portfolio on the paper originally specified by Bass, with additional slipsheets containing the paper, typography and reproduction specifications. As expected for an industry paper promotion, the design and printing meet the highest production standards of the day.

An exceptional original document that promotes various Kimberely -Clark papers and Saul Bass's problem-solving and design methodology. Because of this folios design/production values, I must assume it was produced in a very limited edition. The ephemeral nature also virtually guarantees that few copies survived. A truly rare original document from one of the most influential graphic designers of the 20th century.

Includes letterhead for:

• Schwayder Brothers Incorporated
• Am-Par Record Corporation
• Herb Shriner
• McDonnell Aircraft Corporation
• The Trane Company
• Oshkosh B'Gosh, Incorporated
• Ivan Allen Company
• Bank of America

From the 1981 AIGA MEDAL essay by David R. Brown: "Beneath theory and rhetoric, and well beyond technique and jargon, the reason for design is to speak to people in a language this is familiar, but also new, to entice people to understand an old thing in a new way, or grasp a new thing in an old way. There has never been a designer who can do this better than Saul Bass, who adds the 1981 AIGA Medal to his long and quite extraordinary list of honors and achievements . . .

"Saul Bass's work touches people. Not just designers, or students, or observers of design, or those who know and can explain what a designer is and does, but simply people -- many, many people.

"It's a cliché, but Saul Bass really has done it all. Films. Packaging. Products. Architecture. Corporate identification. Graphics. His work surrounds us. Pick up the telephone and you¹re hard-pressed not to recall Bass's ubiquitous Bell System symbol and look. Take a plane -- United, Continental, Frontier: Saul Bass. Go to a film -- Psycho, Anatomy of a Murder, Exodus, Spartacus, The Man With the Golden Arm, Advise & Consent, Such Good Friends: Saul Bass. In the supermarket or in the kitchen -- Wesson, Quaker, Alcoa, Lawry's, Dixie: Saul Bass. Relax with a magazine, read a book, watch TV, take some pictures -- Saturday Evening Post, Warner, Minolta: Saul Bass. Give to charity -- The United Way, Girl Scouts: Saul Bass. Strike an Ohio Blue Tip match.

"If part of what design is about is communicating through symbols, Saul Bass and his firm have subsequently created a fair measure of what we now perceive as the modern business and commercial world. Either they have actually created these symbols or contributed mightily to the notion itself.

"Bass is the first to disavow the widely held idea that graphic design and film design are closely related disciplines. In medium, time, concept, technique and technical aspects, they are not. Graphic design is a solitary or small group exercise in creating. Film directing and producing are management efforts of large groups of people, equipment, variables and idea. Yet Saul Bass has not only mastered both, he is comfortable in both. And the Bass competence extends along another axis of accomplishment. At one end are designed communications that stem from, and depend on, the crackle of instant insight‹both his and yours. These images are too urgent to refine, too strong and emotional in their effect to fuss with. At the distant other end of the axis is the attention to numbing detail and mastery of formidable scale best exemplified by the Bell System program, the largest and one of the most successful corporate identification design programs ever conceived and implemented."

Spreads from this volume can be viewed here.

Price: $275.00
PayPal Secure Payment

Domestic Shipping: $10.00