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 Bernhard's 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

Was born Emil Kahn in 1883 in stuggart, Germany, and adopted the name Lucian Bernhard in 1905. Bernhard was influenced strongly by an interior design exhibition in Munich when he wa 15. This inspired him so much that when his parents were on vacation, he painted almost everything in the house with very bright colours. When they returned, his father punished him severely for this which caused him to leave home.

He ran away to the streets of Berlin and was taken in by a local artist. he spent almost all of his time refining his creative voice in his mentors studio and designing at a very impressive pace. It was during this time that he found out about the poster competition and started working on what was to be the first Sachplakat and would spark a huge change in graphic design.

After the success of the priester poster, Bernhard was part of a group of graphic designers that submitted posters regularly to the printers Hollerbaum & Schmidt. He produced posters for companies such as Steinway Pianos, Stiller Shoes, Bosch and Manoli Cigarettes. But none of them matched the impact of the Priester Poster.

Bernhard was employed by the German government during the first world war to produce propaganda and recruitment posters such as this one.

He never had a formal college education or even a high school diploma, but after the war he was made the first professor of poster design at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin. In 1923 bernhard moved to new york, focusing on creating scripts and typefaces for the american type foundry. He died in new york in 1972.

"Bernhard" One of many typefaces designed by Bernhard.

Some of his work.

Style

Sachplakat design can be indentified by these characteristics: minimal imagery (only the product), a large bold type that was typically hand-lettered in the form of sans serif block letters, bold color. People say that simplicity was Lucian Bernhard's trademark, and its possible to say that this style wouldnt not have existed without him.

People

Peter Birkhauser, born in 1911, was a swiss poster artist from Basel. Although his working years were much later than barnyards, he was very strongly influenced by Sachplakat. He wanted to become a painter when he was very young and left grammar school early to study at an art school under artist Niklaus Stoecklin. Birkhauser was known for interpreting his dreams and painting the imagery from them, in an analytical form.

birkhauser's PKZ button poster if one of the best representations of the object poster to date. It won first prize in the PKZ 1934 competition, beating out his teacher Nikalaus Stoeklin's entry.

Ludwig Hohlwein was born in Germany in 1874. After working as an architect, in 1906 he started fresh, in the field of poster design and quickly definined himself as one of the most important poster artists in germany.

Hohlwein's posters differed from bernhard and birkhausers, the images were more detailed, and his use of interlocking shapes made his style very recognizable. during the first world war he worked for the german government designing nazi propaganda posters. ludwig hohlwein died in 1939.

Influence of the 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.

The word was a very powerful tool in the early 20th century,  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 adopted it for propaganda posters and selling patriotism instead of products. the sachplakat influenced propaganda and recruitment posters for countries all over the world.

James Montgomery - U.S.

John Heartfield - Germany (anti-nazi)

Alfred leete - England

References