Joe Caroff, designer of James Bond 007 logo and countless iconic film posters, dies aged 103
Joe Caroff, whose work can be seen on the posters for films including West Side Story, A Hard Day's Night, Last Tango in Paris, Cabaret, Manhattan and The Last Temptation of Christ, died on Sunday.
His sons, Peter and Michael Caroff, told the New York Times he been under hospice care at his home in Manhattan, one day short of his 104th birthday.
Caroff worked on more than 300 campaigns during his career, but his first two commissions turned out to be among his most enduring – and lucrative.
First, United Artists executive David Chasman hired him to design the poster for West Side Story (1961). The better to suggest rough brickwork, Caroff scuffed the lettering, then added fire escapes and perching balletic dancers.
Adapting the font to suit the material became a trademark. Other key examples include his poster for Manhattan (1979), one of more than a dozen collaborations with Woody Allen. In that image, Caroff assembled silhouettes of recognisable New York skyscrapers, including the Empire State Building, Chrysler building and the twin towers to spell out the word 'Manhattan'.
The second task assigned to Caroff by Chasman was to design a letterhead for the publicity release for the first Bond film, Dr No, in 1962.
'He said, 'I need a little decorative thing on top,'' Caroff recalled in 2021. 'I knew [Bond's] designation was 007, and when I wrote the stem of the seven, I thought, 'That looks like the handle of a gun to me.' It was very spontaneous, no effort, it was an instant piece of creativity.'
Taking inspiration from Ian Fleming's favourite gun, a Walther PPK, Caroff extended the image with a barrel and trigger and was paid $300 – a fee never increased by any residuals or royalties.
As with much of his work, the logo was also uncredited, and Caroff never received the public acclaim or name recognition of his close contemporary, Saul Bass.
Other key posters included Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and For a Few Dollars More (1965), as well as Last Tango in Paris (1972), Rollerball (1975), An Unmarried Woman (1978) and Gandhi (1982).
As well as working on graphics and posters, Caroff created a number of opening title sequences, including those for Richard Attenborough's A Bridge Too Far (1977), Volker Schlöndorff's Death of a Salesman (1985), and Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ (1988).
He sought above all else 'effervescence' in his work, he said in the 2022 TCM documentary By Design: The Joe Caroff Story. 'I want it to have a life, it doesn't want to lie there flat.'
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