As the inventor of the “Object Poster”, Lucian Bernhard (born 1883 in Stuttgart as Emil Kahn) will always have a place in the history of poster design. But although his designs for Bosch, Kaffee Hag, Manoli, Pelikan and others are still around, as a person he is relatively unknown. For many of his poster designs he developed typefaces of his own which were subsequently marketed commercially.


A Lucian Bernhard advertising poster using Bernhard Antique Kursiv and Bernhard Modern (bottom)

Bernhard emigrated to America in 1923, and opened his own studio for advertising and interior design in New York that same year. In 1937 he released his most famous typeface, Bernhard Modern, to ATF.