On May 8, 1920, one of the most iconic and influential graphic designers, Saul Bass, was born. Creating posters and opening film sequences for classics like Pyscho, North By Northwest, Vertigo, Anatomy of a Murder, West Side Story, Cape Fear, Goodfellas, Casino, and countless more, we give a nod to the legend who passed away in 1996. Here is a collection of his great posters, and a few of our favorite opening title sequences... enjoy. Even Google got into the mix with a fantastic ode to Mr Bass on their search page... 

Last month, or better known as the April 2013 issue, we featured one of our favorite artists, Indianapolis-based Nathaniel Russell. One of our favorite parts of the robust body of work from Russell are his flyers and "Lost and Found" pieces, where both humor and a WTF that was amazing moment combine into something far more witty than an average flyer. Needles and Pens in SF has compiled many of these pieces in a 'zine, Public Notice. 

One of the most well-known, influential, and transcedent artists of post-war Japan, Tadanori Yokoo has one of the best styles of psychedelic, meets graphic design, meets poster art, meets traditional printmaking you will ever see. He has had numerous retrospectives over the years, and recently was shown at the Iwate Museum of Art in Morioka, Japan.

We love a good opening sequence, so much so that we could have stopped watching The Darjeeling Limited after 3 minutes and that Kinks song. Opening credits are important, whether Woody Allen's simple text treatments or Hitchcock's more ominous, playful openers. "THE FILM before THE FILM is a short documentary that traces the evolution of title design through the history of film. This short film was a research project at the BTK (Berliner Technische Kunsthochschule) that takes a look at pioneers like Saul Bass, Maurice Binder and Kyle Cooper by showing the transitions from early film credits to the inclusion of digital techniques, a resurgence of old-school style, and filmmakers' love of typography in space."

A brilliant collection of pharmaceutical ads from France, circa the 1930s. There are a few in here that channel a pre "Mother's Little Helper" vibe, with a tad-too-happy individual with their over the counter drugs, but we just love the classic graphic design and poster art style. 

Graphic artist and illustrator Sharm Murugiah scores multiple points with us with this project. He has taken the films/screenplays of Quentin Tarantino, and recreated their overall themes as Penguin style book covers, in a similar vein to Penguin's style of re-publishing the classics. All nine of Tarantino's major feature films are featured... 

This past NBA All-Star Weekend in Houston at the Museum of Fine Art Houston, creative agency Doubleday & Cartwright of Brooklyn (featuring one of our favorites in Grotesk) worked with Nike on a special project that had 50 artists interpret 50 great moments from the life and career of Michael Jordan. Jordan was celebrating his 50 birthday right around the All-Star weekend, and seeing that he represents the absolute height of basketball greatness, D&C had some great artists on board... including Jason Jagel, Lola Dupre, Aldous Massie, Grotesk, Sophia Chang and others contribute. 

Amsterdam-based Parra, a former Juxtapoz cover artist who will also be featured in our upcoming April 2013 issue, is set to open Tracy Had A Hard Sunday, a group of new paintings at Jonathan LeVine Gallery opening on February 23, 2013. The show will be the Dutch artist's first in NYC since 2006.

As part of a book from Rizzoli, Shortology is a graphic collection of 101 mini-stories for "those who have no time to lose." Aka, using almost restroom iconography, creative studio H-57 has created this simple graphics to explain complex cultural icons and films. Did you know it only takes two graphics to explain Lord of the Rings? And only 20 seconds to explain the Beatles? It is, in fact, that easy.

The good people of the Danish Film Institute have a fantastic Flickr account, and have compiled a huge set of Cuban movie posters from the 1960s and 70s. The DFI notes of their collection, "Among these are some fine examples of the unique poster art of Niko, Dimas and Bachs." Also known as some established poster artists.