The Priester poster was designed by Lucian Bernhard in 1906 for a poster competition sponsored by Berlin's Priester Matches Company. The poster won first prize, and at the age of 18 Bernhard had created the first Sachplakat, or object poster, which spawned the movement Plakatstil (poster style). This new style would revolutionize the advertising world by utilizing bold colour, stark imagery and minimal lettering, a drastic change from that era's visually complex style of Art Nouveau.

History

At the age of 18 bernhard decided to enter the priester poster competition which was to be judged by the leading designers of the early poster movement. But what excited him more was the first prize of 200 marks (approx. $50) and having his poster printed and displayed throughout Berlin. Bernhard's first sketch was typically art nouveau (or judgenstil as it was know in germany) including in it a two matches, a cigar and ashtray on a checkered table cloth with two dancing women formed out of the tobacco smoke. A friend commented on Bernhard's cigar poster and said he liked it. This misconception prompted bernhard to drastically modify the aesthetics of the poster, by removing everything except for the two matches, which he colored red with yellow tips, and the hand lettered block-style priester logo.

the entry was quickly dismissed at the competition for being to "sparse" and was discarded into the trash can. Ernst Growald, the chief sales manager of Hollerbaum undo schmidt lithography firm incidentally arrived late for the judging. after looking around the room at the other entries, he pulled the poster from the trash and announced "this is my first prize, this is genius!" not only did bernhard receive the two hundred marks and publicity for his poster, but a relationship with growald as an agent and broker as well.

Lucian Bernhard

Born in 1883 in stuggart, Germany, bernhard was raised in a encouraging and creative environment. When we was 16, he painted all the rooms in his house with very bright colours while his parent were on vacation. When they returned, it was realized that he had gone too far and they kicked him out for good.

He lived on the streets of Berlin and was taken in by a local artist and refined his creative voice in his mentors studio, designing at a very prolific pace. after the success of the priestess poster he started his own design studio and proceed many works for many companies, but none of them matched the impact of the priestess poster. in the early 20s bernhard moved to new york, focusing on creating scripts and typefaces for the american type foundry., while still running his studio in paris. he died in new york in 1972.

Movement

the world was changing rapidly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. the industrial revolution was in full swing and everything was becoming bigger and faster very quickly. there were more automobiles on the road, the cites were growing and the great war was in its early stages. the art nouveau style could no longer compete with the new "faster" lifestyle. people didn't have the time for busy detailed ads filled with lots of type and complex images. the object poster provided only the necessary information to the consumer, yet still achieving a memorable campaign. Also, in the early 20th century the advent of multi color lithography had become hugely popular which was utilized widely by plakastil artists.

People

Ludwig Hohlwein born in germany, was at the forefront of the plakatstil movement, but unlike bernhard, he worked on nazi war posters. Peter Birkhauser (switzerland) and Leonetto Capiello (france) are two other important designers of the movement, both also influenced by the beggarstaff brothers. other than propaganda posters, the main media for sachaplakat was advertising.

Effect

The word is very a powerful thing, and when combined in close proximity with a large bold graphic, the result was hard to ignore. Plakastil became the norm in commercial advertising from 1906 through to 1914 when the great war had stopped commercialism to a slow crawl, advertising mostly wordy propaganda and recruiting posters, selling patriotism more than products.