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Saul Bass Pitch Video for Bell System Logo Redesign

From font, colours, shapes to everything you need to know about logos

Saul Bass' work in logo design and movie title credit sequences spanned the latter half of the 20th century, with prominent work in each field. He worked closely with AT&T, designing not only the 1970 "bell" logo that was ubiquitous for a decade, but also the globe logo unveiled in 1983. One reason for this bell logo's ubiquity? The redesign was the largest corporate re-identity program in the U.S., ever. The redesign covered: 135,000 Bell System vehicles 22,000 buildings 1,250,000 phone booths 170,000,000 telephone directories.

This film was made by Bass' company as a presentation to AT&T executives. It would have extended to be shown to the public, but a number of his ideas in the film were not ultimately adopted, like his phone booth designs, and men's and women's uniforms. But a great many of the design were adopted—including, most memorably, the telephone vans and hardhat designs of the 1970s.

Bass designed down to the details, showcasing in this film a myriad of ideas, like Yellow Pages book designs, cufflinks for executives, and flags.