Visual Heritage and Motion Design. The Graphic-Cultural Legacy of Saul Bass’s Title Sequences

Opening titles are more than introductory devices supporting the film they have been produced for; they are artistic and cultural artefacts with a powerful visual identity. Among the most emblematic figures in this design field, the graphic and motion designer Saul Bass (1920–1996) pioneered an approach that redefined the identity, the design, and the experience of cinematic title sequences, opening a path of experimentation aimed at bridging visual communication, moving images, stylistic innovation, and aesthetic synaesthesia, through a combination of sound, movement, and image into a single expressive unit. This article investigates Bass’s contribution through a historical-critical and comparative lens, reconstructing the network of artistic and technological influences that shaped his design philosophy. It analyzes a selection of Bass’s title sequences, highlights his connection to European modernism, and identifies the seeds of postmodern culture in several aspects of Bass’s work such as the merging of principles coming from design and animation studies, the ambition for technological experimentation, and the openness towards a mass audience. By framing Bass’s creative legacy as a form of visual heritage, the article examines the ways in which his kinetic typography and moving compositions can be, therefore, recognized as resources for art historians, media scholars, designers, and visual communication theorists to track down the first and impactful aesthetic and narrative experiments conducted in the postmodern and contemporary motion graphic design field.