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Continuing from Great Designers Part I, Great Designers Part II includes the following designers; Saul Bass, Erik Spiekermann and Dieter Rams.
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Our fourth designer is Saul Bass.
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Saul Bass was an American designer and filmmaker.
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He was born in 1920.
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Saul Bass is best known for his motion graphics, title sequences,
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film posters, and corporate logos.
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Saul Bass was one of the pioneers of motion graphics with his creative approaches to title sequences.
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At the same time, he worked on some of the largest corporate identities,
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such as AT&T, Continental Airlines, United Airlines, Dixie, Quaker, and Kleenex.
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Saul Bass was multi-talented and had diverse graphical solutions,
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which cast him as one of the best in his day.
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He had a very symbolic approach,
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which allowed him to visually communicate the message effectively with what appeared to be minimal effort.
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Though corporate identities were his claim to fame,
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until he got his feet wet with title sequences.
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The movie, "The Man With the Golden Arm,"
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caused a sensation in Hollywood and put him on the map.
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This landed him as the most wanted and needed individual
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for title sequences for any major motion picture in Hollywood.
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Some of his final works you might recognize—
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Psycho, Goodfellas, Cape Fear, and Casino.
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Saul Bass also had a very interesting approach to design.
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Here are a few of his best known phrases—
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"One must expect and accept the possibility of failure."
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"Design is thinking made visual."
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Finally, "Symbolize and Summarize."
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Our next designer is a German-based designer that goes by the name of Erik Spiekermann.
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Erik Spiekermann is a German-based typographer and graphic designer.
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Erik has been in the industry for over 40 years.
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He started with letter press; then graphic design, and now he is known as a typomaniac—
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as one of the best typographers alive today.
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He and his wife, Joan Spiekermann, started the very first mail-order digital font company.
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They called it Font Shop.
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Erik has designed many noteworthy typefaces in his career.
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Some of them are Berliner Grotesk,
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Meta, and Meta Serif—just to name a few.
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Recently, Erik Spiekermann gave a talk titled, "Type on Screen."
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He went on to explain how designing for small digital spaces,
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like for mobile devices, is really no different than when he used to design for aspirin bottles.
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In fact, it's much easier to design for mobile because you are allowed an infinite amount of colors and have multiple type options.
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Back when he used to design for aspirin bottles,
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he would only have one typeface to work with and maybe 2 colors, if he was lucky.
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Also, he had to keep in mind the consumer might have a headache
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while trying to read the directions.
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Designers like Erik Spiekermann have been in the industry
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for such a long time and have helped lay the foundations of the technology we have today.
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I highly suggest researching Erik's work and listening to his talks.
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His reasoning for design is that of a genius.
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Speaking of influential designers of the 20th Century,
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next up we have Dieter Rams.
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Dieter Rams is another German-based designer.
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However, he is an industrial designer with a strong carpentry and architectural background.
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Dieter Rams was destined for greatness in the industrial design industry.
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In 1961, he became the chief design officer of Braun until 1995.
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Dieter Rams set the groundwork for the 2 words—user and friendly.
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Even his earlier designs proved to do unbelievably well because they were aesthetically pleasing and so user-friendly.
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Dieter best describes his design approach with the phrase, "less, but better."
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In the 1970s, Dieter constructed the 10 principles of good design.
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Here they are—
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Good design is innovative.
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Good design makes a product useful.
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Good design is aesthetic.
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Good design makes a product understandable.
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Good design is unobtrusive.
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Good design is honest.
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Good design is long-lasting.
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Good design is thorough down to the last detail.
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Good design is environmentally friendly.
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Good design is as little design as possible, meaning less, but better.
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Dieter Rams is by far one of the most influential designers of today.
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His design principles still hold true to their value.
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In fact, Steve Jobs of Apple, Inc.'s biggest influence was Dieter Rams.
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He clearly helped change the world and make our lives that much better through one word—design.
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With the technology drastically increasing in today's world,
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the need for designers like yourself couldn't have come at a better time.
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