Those Amazing Plakatstil Posters! Hans Rudi Erdt When we look at retro posters there can be no more of an amazing story than what happened to a 15 year old in 1898 Berlin Germany. His name was Lucian Bernhard and after attending an exhibition of interior decoration he was amazed by the lavish colors he had experienced throughout the show. Dumbstruck with enthusiasm for these avant-garde colors, Lucian decided to paint his father’s home interiors in the bright paints he was so moved by. His father, retuning from a three-day trip was shocked at what Lucien had done. Not amused, his father named his son a criminal causing young Lucian to flee his home. Trying desperately to support himself on his own, this self-taught young artist eventually decided to enter a poster contest for Priester matches in 1905. The original poster design was an ashtray with lighted cigar and a box of matches on a tablecloth. Lucian eventually felt the image was too bare and he painted dancing girls in the background rising out of the smoke. Further examination later that day, he decided that the image was too complicated so he painted the girls out. Even later that evening a friend dropped by and asked if it was a poster for a cigar. That motivated Bernhard to paint out the cigar. The young artist also decided that the tablecloth and ashtray stood out to prominently and painted those out as well. What was left? Just matches a on bare table. With time running out on the contest deadline Bernard quickly painted the word Priester above the matches in blue and got the poster off to the competition that needed to be postmarked by midnight. The poster and advertising in general was about to have a ground breaking change. The story gets even more amazing! It was eventually leaked out that all of the entries were first thrown in the trash and completely rejected by all the jurors. If one of the group had not arrived late the history of poster design would have been quite different. Ernst Growald of the Hollerbaum and Schmidt lithography firm convinced the jurors that one of the designs in the trash was worthy of reconsideration. Holding up Bernhard’s poster Growald lectured the group, “This is my first prize. Here is a genius!” The design went on to become the famous Priester matches poster which was a formula that would be repeated many times over. A simple, direct reduction of shapes and a word. A design approach that is still used with the advantage of running as tiny as a postage stamp and as large as a billboard. This design school of flat shapes and simple color became known as the Plakatstil (poster style) of Germany in the early twentieth century. Bernhard used this approach in next two decades of his career. He designed over 300 packages for the firm and influenced five other graphic designers to come on board with them. What followed was an amazing array of product logo posters that eventually made its way to America in 1923. Oddly enough, it was five years before he received any poster commissions. No doubt German poster art would eventually play a significant role in the language of American advertising.
Creator: Lucian Bernhard (German graphic designer, 1883-1972) Date: 1909 Materials: color lithograph Measurements: Work type: advertisements; posters Image Description: advertising poster for typewriter manufacturer Image_Filename: 06110705 Subjects: Advertisements
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graphic design, the art and profession of selecting and arranging visual elements—such as typography, images, symbols, and colours—to convey a message to an audience. Sometimes graphic design is called “visual communications,” a term that emphasizes its function of giving form—e.g., the design of a book, advertisement, logo, or Web site—to information. An important part of the designer’s task is to combine visual and verbal elements into an ordered and effective whole. Graphic design is therefore a collaborative discipline: writers produce words and photographers and illustrators create images that the designer incorporates into a complete visual communication. The evolution of graphic
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Our Top 50 World-Rocking Posters
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Artwork by Ernst Deutsch n December 1911, Typewriter Topics' European director, London-based multilingual Luxembourger Jacques Gustave Hemes, was inspired to write a feature article for Topics on the subject of typewriter advertising in Germany. Hemes made particular reference to colourful posters ("dullness being entirely absent"), saying they were "works of art and of good taste". How right he was. The typewriter posters were high points in what came to be known as the "golden age of poster art" in Germany, evoking names such as Bernhard, Deutsch-Dryden and Erdt. The main illustration for Hemes' report in Topics, above, marked the first appearance outside Germany of Austrian-born Ernst Deutsch's famous Mercedes typewriter poster, one of the most popular examples of typewriter-related artwork ever created. (Hemes' full report can be seen at the bottom of this post, and includes a selection of advertising artwork for Swift, Torpedo and Continental typewriters.) Ernst Deutsch The beautiful, seemingly blushing red-dressed lady was used by Deutsch (later Ernst Dryden) to help Mercedes promote its new standard model, the No 3, launched in 1911: Deutsch was particularly fond of the red-dressed lady in shiny black shoes during this period, also using her for posters to promote a number of other events and products. He even doubled her up (and used the same typewriter, table and chair) for the cover of the sheet music for Mercedes Girl (Mercedes Mädel), a waltz by Francesco Fanciulli. Deutsch was born in Vienna on August 3, 1887. A commercial artist and graphic designer in Berlin in the years immediately before World War I, he was "one of the protagonists of the new style in poster art, with Julius Klinger and Lucian Bernhard". In 1916 he changed his name to Dryden (possibly in reverence of American illustrator Helen Dryden), returned to Vienna, then moved to Paris. The change in his signature on his artwork is illustrated here: Deutsch (left) Dryden (right) In 1929 Deutsch-Dryden settled in New York and worked for Saks Fifth Avenue, Macy's and Marshall Field's, designing for the emerging market of mass clothing. In 1933 he became a costume designer in Hollywood, working for Universal, Columbia and Selznick. Deutsch-Dryden died of a heart attack in his villa in Hollywood on March 17, 1938, five days after Hitler invaded Austria. Other notable works by Deutsch-Dryden included: Deutsch-Dryden was not the first of the great Austro-German poster artists of the period to work for Mercedes. That honour was claimed in 1910 by Hans Lindenstaedt (1874-1928) with this poster, illustrating the demountability of the Model 2: As with Deutsch, Lindenstaedt worked alongside Hans Rudi Erdt (March 31, 1883-May 24, 1918), contributing to the Sachplakat* movement started by Lucian Bernhard at the prestigious Hollerbaum und Schmidt art printing company, along with Edmund Edel, Julius Klinger, Julius Gipkens, Paul Scheurich and Karl Schulpig. Erdt is recognised for his innovative use of typography in posters. (The drop-letter "i" at the top of this post is taken from Deutsch-Dryden's work on a Bugatti poster.) *Object poster; also Plakatstil = "poster style"; plakat = poster. Plakatstil used reductive imagery and flat colours; Sachplakat restricted the image to simply the object being advertised and the brand name. Lucian Bernhard Among typewriter poster artists, Lucian Bernhard (March 15, 1883-May 29, 1972) is best known for his highly distinctive work for the Adler Model 7. His poster typography is said to have inspired Hermann (aka Heinz) Hoffmann to create the Block Berthold (aka Bloc) typeface in 1908: Hoffmann's Bloc font Bernhard was a German graphic designer, type designer, professor, interior designer and artist. He was born in Stuttgart on March 15, 1883, as Emil Kahn, but changed his name in 1905. Though he studied briefly at the Akademie in Munich, he was largely self-taught. He moved to Berlin in 1901, where he worked as a poster designer and art director for magazines. From 1920 he was a professor at the Akademie der Künste until 1923, when he emigrated to New York City. In 1928 he opened the Contempora Studio with Rockwell Kent, Paul Poiret, Bruno Paul and Erich Mendelsohn, working as a graphic artist and interior designer. After 1930 he worked primarily as a painter and sculptor until his death on May 29, 1972. Perhaps my own favourite Mercedes typewriter poster is this one: It is the work of August Hajduk (born July 1, 1880, Bad Gleichenberg, Styria; died 1918?), an Austria-Hungarian graphic artist, portraitist, illustrator and typographer. Hajduk first studied at the Graz Zeichenakademie and in 1900 moved to Wilhelm von Rümann's school of sculpture in Munich. From 1907 he worked in Berlin for department store chain A. Jandorf & Co, creating the artwork for first full-page newspaper advertisements. In 1910 he designed for the Bauer Type Foundry in Frankfurt the font Haiduk-Antiqua. Hajduk was an assigned war artist in World War I and was last heard from in 1918. The full Typewriter Topics story by Hemes:
By: Steven Heller | August 12, 2010 The Priester Match poster is a watershed document of modern graphic design, or rather, proto-Modern design. Its composition is so stark and its colors so startling that it captures the viewer’s eye in an instant. Before 1906, when the poster first appeared on the streets of Berlin, persuasive simplicity was a rare thing in most advertising: posters, especially, tended to be wordy and ornate. No one had yet heard of its young creator,
This is a magazine cover I did for one of my Graphic Design classes. It is done in an plakatstil art style.
The same principles that make a killer poster apply to any graphic confined to a rectangle.
Take inspiration from these tips and experiences offered by some of the industry's most recognizable and influential graphic designers.
Poster House is thrilled to partner with design historian Steven Heller for an evening examining the iconic and impactful work of Lucian Bernhard. Lucian Bernhard is the putative father of the modern…
Creator: Lucian Bernhard (German graphic designer, 1883-1972) Date: 1913 Materials: color lithograph Measurements: 92.1 cm (height) x 67.9 cm (width) Work type: advertisements; posters Image_Filename: 07120516 Subjects: Automobiles in art
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Lucian Bernhard is best known for his German poster style Sachplakat, or object poster. Focusing on a single object or product with minimal type altered the look of advertising. He also made inroads into German type design when the Berthold Type Foundry issued a “block” letter in 1910 that looked suspiciously like Bernhard’s own poster lettering, which forced him to seriously design his own alphabets to protect his inventions. In 1913 Bernhard’s first typeface, Antiqua, was r
The January 1929 issue of Linotype Magazine, published by the Mergenthaler Linotype Company, was dedicated to new trends in typographic design. The issue featured layouts arranged in linotype by Lucian Bernhard (1883-1972) a German graphic designer, type designer and artist well-known for his particular style in advertising known as Plakatstil. Plakatstil (or "Poster style") highlighted bold, simplified font, flat colors and streamlined shapes. These voguish samples of advertisements, including compelling suggestions for the selection of particular types, embody Bernhard's style and offered Mergenthaler Linotype users a fresh, more modern way to appeal to their customers. Jaime Henderson, Archivist
Poster designed by Lucian Bernhard for Oigee binoculars 1912.
