Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Blog 5 - Saul Bass

The Shining

This is the poster art for the Stanley Kubrick's psychological thriller, The Shining.  With this poster Saul Bass manages to capture the sheer terror of the movie with color, texture and simple imagery - his trademark style.  The color red is an emotionally intense color - it stimulates a faster heart rate and increases our breathing rate.  Black tends to represent power: the color of villains.  Bass uses these two colors effectively in this poster to create fear.  The imagery does a great job at creating fear as well.  The face trapped in the letter "T" looks startled and horrified.  The graininess of the image gives the feeling of being lit by candle light from below.  The "trapping" of the face in the "T" further creates the feeling of panic.  This movie was one of the most frightening films I have ever seen and I believe that Bass captures the essence of it with this poster.


Source: Meggs, Philip, Six Chapters in Design, Chronicle Books, San Francisco, California, 1997

1 comment:

  1. I agree, he is just an amazing graphic artist. I know he's famous for that "golden arm" image, but I like some of his other work better. This piece has great expression in it. I think about all the hand work done here in its original state and then I think about Photoshop in use today. I love the fact the he plays with the type, distorting it, putting and image in it and slanting it. It is simple, but has a great impact on you even today.

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