Designing Oscar: How a British Art Director Brought Pop-Up Books and Church Bells to the Big Show

In a Wrap magazine special, designer Arnold Schwartzman shares his favorite Academy Awards designs

Arnold Schwartzman's Oscar designs
Diane Garrett

This story first appeared in the Down to the Wire issue of TheWrap magazine.

It took an odd sequence of events for Arnold Schwartzman to end up designing posters, programs, menus and more for the Academy Awards. A British art director who’d gotten his start with the London music show “Ready, Steady, Go” in the 1960s, he moved to Los Angeles in 1978 to take a job as head of design for the company run by his friend, legendary designer Saul Bass — and while he didn’t like that job, he stuck around and accepted another gig for which Bass recommended him, making a short documentary for a Holocaust museum.

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