Saul Bass on Money, Quality Work & Creative Legacy

We’re big fans of iconic designer Saul Bass. This triad of interviews, filmed shortly before Bass’s death in 1996, offers a rare peek at the machinery of his creative genius as he shares priceless and often unexpected insight on the tradeoff between making money and doing quality work, his legacy, and the fundamental competency responsibilities of young designers.

I don’t give a damn if the client thinks it’s worth anything, or whether it IS worth anything — it’s worth it to me. It’s the way I wanna live my life. I wanna make beautiful things, even if nobody cares.” ~ Saul Bass

Learn to draw! If you don’t, you’re gonna live your life getting around that and trying to compensate for that.” ~ Saul Bass

The full 90-minute documentary is available on 2-disc DVD from the filmmaker and designer Archie Boston’s site. Meanwhile, don’t miss Bass’s absolutely fantastic Why Man Creates animated feature, a deeper investigation into the origin of creative impetus.

Brain Pickings has a free weekly newsletter and people say it’s cool. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week’s best articles. Here’s an example. Like? Sign up.

The Future of Art: An Immediated Autodocumentary

Last week, we featured Aaron Koblin’s insightful thoughts on the digital renaissance. The interview, produced by futurism exploration outfit Emergence Collective, was actually part of a larger “immediated autodocumentary” — a full-length documentary short and edited in an extraordinarily short amount of time — on the future of art, released this week. The film features interviews with 13 leading digital artists and creative entrepreneurs, interviewed at the 2011 Transmediale Festival in Berlin, and explores everything from remix culture to the role of content curators to collaborative creativity.

That is the role that we [curators] play — making connections between things that might not otherwise be obvious connections.” ~ Heather Kelley

The idea of originality and proprietariness also contributes to the whole Great Man Theory, which is slowly disintegrating — the idea of the genius, the Freud, the Marx, the Leonardo, the Einstein… They’ve come up with an idea that’s completely related to the man that came up with it. Whereas, today, the ideas just get thrown out there and used, and it’s that use that in a way is the art, rather than the person who comes up with the idea.” ~ Ken Wahl

via Swiss Miss

Brain Pickings has a free weekly newsletter and people say it’s cool. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week’s best articles. Here’s an example. Like? Sign up.

American Maker: A Manifesto for Hands-On Creativity from 1960

In 1960, the Chevrolet division of General Motors and the Handy (Jam) Organization produced American Maker a half-hour film about craftsmanship, creativity and how Americans build. More than a mere vehicle of patriotic propaganda, the film is beautifully shot and offers stunning footage of life and work in that era for a fascinating cultural contrast to the “Swinging London” of the 1960, going on at the same time across the pond.

Of all things Americans are, we are makers. With our strengths and our minds and spirit, we gather and form and we fashion. Makers and shapers and put-it-togetherers. We start young, finding out early in life what it’s like to feel something grow and take shape beneath our hands.”

As makers of today and shapers for tomorrow, we Americans seem to share an inborn understanding of how to go about making the things we want. Whether we’re reaching for the moon, hobbying in the home, doing our part on a convenience to be enjoyed, or preparing a tasty tidbit, we’re — all of us — makers.”

So successful was the film that it was played in tandem with Hitchcock’s Psycho, the blockbuster of its day, in select theaters in the Detroit area — the automaker’s prime target of patriotic pep.

The film is available as a free download in multiple video formats from The Internet Archive and offers a priceless, timeless, nationless ode to the art of hands-on innovation, as well as a timely nod at the recent groundswell of the shut-up-and-make-something ethos.

Brain Pickings has a free weekly newsletter and people say it’s cool. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week’s best articles. Here’s an example. Like? Sign up.