Inspired by Saul Bass

The wonderful 1955 movie poster for "Man with the Golden Arm" by Saul Bass has inspired many knock-offs. (Here's a great blog post showing the range of original Saul Bass posters for this movie. And another nice posting about how Saul Bass designs are mostly ignored by modern-day DVD cover designers.)

Here's the original. (As always, click for an enlarged view.)

And a lobby card version from the same time.

And a poster I spotted on the street last week.

And a design I did in 1996. I should've paid more attention to the lettering on the original, but this was pre-internet and I was working from memory. I should have also just worked in black plus one color. Making the hand in color is overkill.

And the inside layout -- which benefits from being restricted to just black and white.