Saul Bass

Saul Bass is a graphic designer born in New York City, New York on May 8th, 1920. He is best known for his title design work on famous films such as Psycho, Goodfellas, Casino and Alien. In 1974, he directed the killer ant sci-fi/horror film Phase IV.

The title design that was used for Alien involved simple, geometric shapes and incorporated a slow dissolve onto the screen, giving the film a more epic atmosphere. The original title design for the film was going to show the Alien logo made out of bone and bits of flesh. The producers decided that this would be too gruesome of an opening and changed it to a slow dissolve title sequence, which resembles a form of hieroglyphs.