We’re reasonably sure that the highly erudite folks who read The Beat get this joke, but just to give a little background, Bass was the immensely influential and highly imitated graphic designer whose logos, movie posters and, most importantly, animated film credit sequences created a whole strain of drastically pared down modernism, minimal yet elegant. Influenced by the Bauhaus movement and Russian Constructivism, his titles for THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM were considered shocking at the time, focusing on the jagged image of an arm to impart the pain of drug addiction. (The movie featured Frank Sinatra as a heroin-addicted ex-con and musician.) Bass would go on to do more groundbreaking work with Alfred Hitchock, Stanley Kubrick and Billy Wilder, among others.

Okay, hilarious right?

1 COMMENT

  1. Bebop was more influenced by the jazz album covers for Blue Note Records, which were designed by Reid Miles. Of course Bass and Miles both started tehir most popular work in the mid 50’s, so there was probably some cross influence.