Bernhardt Fudyma Design Group
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Thinking Back

In 1973, a first class stamp cost 8 cents and gas was 39 cents a gallon. The Vietnam War was ending as Richard Nixon’s Watergate trouble was deepening. The Dow was at 850 and a new graphic design firm had just opened for business. Since then commercial supersonic flight, the World Trade Center, NASA’s space shuttle program and the TV show Cheers have all come and gone. As Bernhardt Fudyma completes its 4th decade in business, we’ve taken a look back at some of the events and developments that have shaped our world since the beginning of 1973 and juxtaposed them to a few of the design assignments that were also occupying our thoughts at the time.

1973

Charles F. Noyes (currently Helmsley-Noyes), a lower Manhattan realtor and developer, chooses our newly established firm to develop its corporate identity.

Also This Year

The Supreme Court hands down its original ruling on Roe v Wade

  • The first working ATM machine is installed in a Chemical Bank in New York
  • Federal Express begins operations with the launch of 14 small aircraft delivering 186 packages to 25 US cities
  • The World Trade Center formally opens as the world's tallest buildings

1974

Bernhardt Fudyma creates a combination identity and masthead to distinguish Electrical Digest, a publication for electricians and contractors.

Also This Year

Derek Jeter is born

  • The very first scanning of the now ubiquitous Universal Product Code (UPC) barcode was on a pack of Wrigley chewing gum
  • The first issue of People magazine hits the newsstands
  • Dr. Henry Heimlich first describes the Heimlich Maneuver for choking victims in a medical journal
  • Leonardo DiCaprio is born
  • Patty Hearst is kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army

1975

Working with Art Director Sam Antupit, Bernhardt Fudyma creates the cover art for each issue of the newly designed Consumer Reports magazine.

Also This Year

The movie Jaws is released in theaters

  • Paul Allen and Bill Gates found Microsoft
  • Saturday Night Live debuts on NBC with guest host George Carlin
  • The last American troops leave Vietnam
  • Mohammed Ali TKOs Joe Frazier at the ‘Thrilla in Manila’

1976

Seagram Distillers chooses Bernhardt Fudyma to redesign and produce its quarterly employee magazine.

Also This Year

Tiger Woods is born

  • The Tax Reform Act establishes the Individual Retirement Account
  • The Concorde makes its first commercial flight
  • The Muppets first appear on TV
  • Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs found Apple Computer

1977

Burlington Industries assigns Bernhardt Fudyma to develop an identity for a program that recognized the creative use of its fabrics in the home furnishings market.

Also This Year

The first Star Wars premieres

  • Studio 54 opens
  • The last known case of smallpox is cured and the disease is eradicated, but Lyme Disease appears on the scene
  • Elvis Presley dies

1978

Bernhardt Fudyma redesigns and begins an eight
year stint producing the flagship employee/ shareholder publication for W.R.Grace.

Also This Year

John Paul II becomes Pope

  • Casino gambling is legalized in Atlantic City
  • The world’s first test tube baby, Louise Brown, is born in London
  • Ben and Jerry open their first ice cream parlor in a converted gas station in Vermont

1979

Viking Penguin assigns Bernhardt Fudyma to design a series of posters to promote the release of their new book titles.

Also This Year

Howard Stern begins broadcasting on WCCC in Hartford CT

  • Sony introduces the Walkman
  • A nuclear accident occurs at Three Mile Island
  • Skylab falls back to earth

1980

The Maxwell House division of General Foods asks Bernhardt Fudyma to ‘reincarnate’ its corporate magazine which was first published in 1924.

Also This Year

John Lennon is shot in NYC

  • 3M introduces Post-it Notes
  • Mount St. Helens erupts
  • Ted Turner launches CNN
  • Lauren Bernhardt is born

1981

Holt Rinehart and Winston assigns Bernhardt Fudyma to redesign their catalogues of school textbooks and instructional materials.

Also This Year

MTV is launched

  • IBM sells the first ‘personal computer’
  • John Hinkley Jr. attempts to assassinate President Ronald Reagan
  • Sandra Day O’Connor becomes the first woman nominated to the Supreme Court
  • AIDS begins to be recognized as an epidemic
  • Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, Elijah Wood, Paris Hilton, Natalie Portman and Beyonce are born

1982

Bernhardt Fudyma creates a system of marketing materials for Citibank’s commodity trading programs using M.C. Escher’s Metamorphosis as a visual metaphor.

Also This Year

Maya Lin’s controversial Vietnam War Memorial is dedicated in Washington, DC

  • The first space shuttle, Columbia, completes its inaugural flight
  • Cheers and Late Night with David Letterman debut
  • The first successful heart transplant is performed in Salt Lake City

1983

To explain the properties and quality of their custom made filters, Bernhardt Fudyma creates marketing materials that differentiate Fluid Conditioning Products from their competitors.

Also This Year

Launched in 1972, Pioneer 10 becomes the first
man-made object to leave the solar system

  • CD players and discs are introduced in the US
  • Crack cocaine is developed
  • The first commercially available mobile phone, the Motorola DynaTac 8000X, makes its appearance in Chicago

1984

Using a ‘what’s wrong with this picture?’ scenario and illustrations by Richard Hess, Bernhardt Fudyma creates a brochure for Citibank’s Cash Management Consulting services.

Also This Year

LeBron James is born

  • Apple Computer releases the Macintosh
  • Madonna gets her first hit with Like a Virgin
  • DNA is first used in a criminal case
  • Kate Bernhardt is born

1985

Bernhardt Fudyma is chosen by the El Torito restaurant chain to tell the story of the company’s explosive growth in its annual report.

Also This Year

The wreck of the Titanic is found

  • Back to the Future opens
  • The Discovery Channel is launched
  • The charity single We Are the World is recorded
  • Wrestlemania debuts at Madison Square Garden

1986

To help one of the ‘big eight’ accounting firms raise funds for the restoration of Ellis Island, Bernhardt Fudyma creates a timeline of immigration using the stories and experiences of the families of the firm‘s own employees.

Also This Year

The space shuttle Challenger explodes on liftoff

  • The Chernobyl nuclear power plant explodes in the world’s worst nuclear accident
  • Nintendo debuts its first electronic games
  • The Ford Taurus is introduced

1987

During their first year in operation, Bond Investors Guaranty assigns Bernhardt Fudyma to develop a coordinated identity system to distinguish this newcomer to the municipal bond insurance arena.

Also This Year

Rita Hayworth dies and Jersey Shore’s Snooki is born

  • The Simpsons cartoon first appears as a series of shorts
    on the Traci Ullman Show
  • Aretha Franklin becomes the first woman inducted into
    the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
  • In January, the Dow closes above 2000 for the first time
    but is followed in October by Black Monday – the largest
    1 day percentage drop in the index’s history

1988

Citibank’s Global Trade Division asks Bernhardt Fudyma to develop materials that explain the
benefits of its services – less paperwork, better
control and decreased costs when buying goods overseas.

Also This Year

The stealth bomber is revealed

  • Pan Am flight 103 blows up over Lockerbie Scotland from a bomb hidden inside a radio-cassette player
  • Salmon Rushdie publishes the Satanic Verses
  • Sony Bono is elected mayor of Palm Springs

1989

To increase legibility, improve reproduction accuracy and convey a more contemporary look, Nabisco assigns Bernhardt Fudyma to perform the first major graphic update of its familiar triangular logo since Raymond Loewy first designed it in 1952.

Read about the history of the Nabisco logo

Also This Year

The Berlin Wall falls

  • Tiananmen Square protests result in thousands of casualties inflicted on unarmed civilians
  • The Exxon Valdez runs aground and spills 10 million gallons of oil into Alaskan waters
  • I.M.Pei’s glass pyramid entrance to the Louvre Museum opens
  • Serial Killer Ted Bundy is executed in Florida’s electric chair

1990

The Gilbert Paper Company invites Bernhardt Fudyma to contribute a design based on the theme ‘freedom of expression’. The current events of the time inspire our solution.

View an online version of this project

Also This Year

Nelson Mandela is released from prison after serving 27 years for his opposition to apartheid

  • The World Health Organization removes homosexuality from its list of diseases
  • Tim Berners-Lee creates the first webpage on the first web server
  • The Hubble Space Telescope is launched

1991

The Brooklyn Hospital Center asks Bernhardt
Fudyma to create a coordinated, flexible and
efficient system of resident recruiting materials.

Also This Year

The ‘perfect storm’ strikes the northeast US

  • The Cold War ends after 45 years when the Supreme Soviet
    dissolves the Soviet Union
  • Jeffrey Dahmer is arrested in Milwaukee
  • The beating of Rodney King is videotaped in Los Angeles
  • Otzi (the iceman) is found in the Alps

1992

The Association of American Indian Affairs asks Bernhardt Fudyma to create the identity, promotion and event materials for the Native American Film and Media Celebration.

See more of this project

Also This Year

Dow Corning announces that it will stop making silicone breast implants

  • The Internet Society is chartered and 1 million host computers are connected in a ‘network’
  • The Toronto Blue Jays becomes the first non-American team to win the world series
  • John Gotti (The Teflon Don) is convicted of 5 murders after years of eluding arrest

1993

Tanagraphics, one of New York’s premier printers, assigns Bernhardt Fudyma to design a quarterly promotional calendar series that showcases its printing capabilities.

Also This Year

The public is allowed into Buckingham Palace for
the first time

  • The first bombing of the World Trade Center kills 6 and injures
    over 1000 people
  • Federal agents from the ATF storm the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas
  • Dateline with Jane Pauley premieres on NBC

1994

Using anthropomorphic graphs and charts, Bernhardt Fudyma helps AIG explain its hedging services that protect both producers and consumers of oil and gas from the volatile nature of energy pricing.

Also This Year

OJ Simpson is arrested for the murders of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman

  • The Channel Tunnel (Chunnel) opens between Britain and France
  • The first version of web browser Netscape Navigator is released
  • Kurt Cobain of the band Nirvana dies of a self-inflicted gunshot wound

1995

Working with Makovsky & Company, Bernhardt Fudyma creates the branding and promotional materials for ThinkQuest – a competition that challenged students to develop and build educational websites for their peers.

Also This Year

Toy Story, the first ever full length computer animated film is released

  • eBay founded
  • Forbes Magazine announces that Bill Gates is the richest man in the world
  • The Federal Building in Oklahoma City is bombed

1996

Bernhardt Fudyma creates an advertising campaign for GE Equity Capital that explains how they could provide a ‘window of opportunity’ for small businesses.

Also This Year

Dolly the sheep, the first mammal to be successfully cloned from an adult cell, is born in Scotland

  • Ted Kaczynski (the Unibomber) is turned in by his brother
  • Chess computer ‘Deep Blue’ defeats world chess champion Garry Kasparov for the first time
  • JonBenet Ramsey is found dead in her parents basement in Boulder, Colorado

1997

Bernhardt Fudyma develops a typographic ‘evolution’ of messages for the John Wiley & Sons’ annual report to explain how they were adapting products and processes to meet the needs of their customers.

Also This Year

Hong Kong is returned to the Chinese

  • Princess Diana is killed in an automobile accident in Paris
  • The first color photograph appears on the front page of the
    New York Times
  • Madeline Albright becomes the first female Secretary of State
  • James Cameron's Titanic premieres

1998

To help Citigroup attract the best and the brightest, Bernhardt Fudyma develops a coordinated system of recruiting materials, ads and the overall campaign theme: ‘Institutional Power. Individual Energy’.

Also This Year

The Clinton sex scandal explodes and he becomes
the 2nd American president to be impeached

  • Google is founded by Stanford University PhD candidates Larry
    Page and Sergey Brin
  • Mark McGuire breaks Roger Maris’ record with 70 home runs in a single season
  • Frank Sinatra dies

1999

For the merger of two of New York’ most prestigious hospitals and medical schools, Bernhardt Fudyma
creates a new identity system that not only
represents the overall institution, but also
accommodates application to its many individual hospital centers, colleges and satellite clinics.

Also This Year

The last Checker taxi cab is retired in New York City and auctioned off for approximately $135,000

  • The Euro is established
  • JFK Junior, his wife and sister-in-law die in a plane crash off the
    coast of Martha’s Vineyard
  • Two students kill 15 and wound 23 at Columbine High School
  • The world prepares for the perceived challenges of Y2K

2000

Bernhardt Fudyma creates the identity and all internal and external marketing and fulfillment materials for the Travelers’ Marquis Portfolios.

See more of this project

Also This Year

The billionth living person in India is born

  • Because of ‘hanging chads’, it takes a Supreme Court ruling to declare George W. Bush president
  • The final original Peanuts comic strip is published following the death of its creator, Charles Schulz
  • The first resident crew enters the International Space Station
Take a tour of the ISS

2001

American Express assigns Bernhardt Fudyma to redesign its flagship employee publication to
function as both a conventional magazine and an interactive module with expanded content on the company’s intranet.

Also This Year

The iPod is introduced

  • Terrorists hijack commercial jetliners and crash them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11th.....which
    renders most other events of the year inconsequential

2002

Bernhardt Fudyma is asked to create a combination case statement and annual report for the Jewish Theological Seminary to convey the schools mission, raise funds and acknowledge supporters.

Also This Year

The Mars Odyssey rover finds signs of large water ice deposits on the planet Mars

  • The Department of Homeland Security is formed
  • Halle Berry becomes the first African American to win the Academy Award for best actress
  • The Population Division of the United Nations calculates that 40 million people around the world are infected with HIV

2003

As part of an integrated branding system developed for the Beginning with Children Foundation, Bernhardt Fudyma designs the websites for the foundation and its two charter schools.

Also This Year

The Human Genome Project is completed, with 99% of the human genome sequenced to 99.99%

  • The last signal is received from NASA's Pioneer 10 spacecraft, some 7.5 billion miles from Earth
  • The Concorde makes its last commercial flight, bringing the era of airliner supersonic travel to a close
  • Johnny Cash, June Carter-Cash and Sam Phillips die

2004

Bernhardt Fudyma provides both the content and design for a corporate image brochure that
showcases the extent of Standard & Poor’s
businesses against the backdrop of the world’s financial markets where they operate.

Also This Year

The Curse of the Bambino is broken when the
Boston Red Sox win the World Series for the first
time since 1918

  • A massive 9.3 magnitude earthquake generates enormous
    tsunami waves that crash into the coastal areas around the entire Indian Ocean in one of the worst natural disasters in recorded history
  • Groundbreaking for the Freedom Tower begins at Ground Zero in New York
  • San Francisco begins issuing marriage licenses to same-sex
    couples

2005

American Express chooses Bernhardt Fudyma to design and produce its annual report – in print and online – for the 6th consecutive year.

Also This Year

Hurricane Katrina makes landfall along the Gulf
Coast causing severe damage and over 1,800 deaths

  • Mark Felt, a former FBI official, revealed that he was ‘Deep Throat’, the anonymous source of Washington Post reporters Woodward
    and Bernstein during their investigative reporting on the
    Watergate scandal
  • Johnny Carson dies
  • Having been postulated for 75 years, American astronomers prove the existence of a 10th planet beyond the orbit of Pluto

2006

Bernhardt Fudyma is chosen by New York Women in Communications to create a brand identity and graphic system that would better convey the relationship between the organization and its prestigious Matrix Awards.

Download a case study of this project

Also This Year

Western Union discontinues its telegram service

  • Saddam Hussein is sentenced and executed by hanging
  • Jackson Pollock’s No.5, 1948 becomes the most expensive
    painting after it was sold privately for $140 million
  • Pluto is demoted to ‘dwarf planet’ status more than
    70 years after its discovery

2007

The MacDowell Colony, the oldest artist residency program in the country, chooses Bernhardt Fudyma to create a refreshed identity that would distinguish its communications for its centennial year – and beyond.

Download a case study of this project

Also This Year

Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants breaks baseball great Hank Aaron's record by hitting his 756th home run

  • The final book of the Harry Potter series is released and becomes the fastest selling book in history
  • The deadliest mass shooting in modern American history occurs at Virginia Tech
  • Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II becomes the oldest ever monarch of the United Kingdom

2008

In order to energize the look and feel of their brand, The Yale Club of New York City asks Bernhardt Fudyma to create a refreshed, contemporary identity system that would also retain the character of the century old institution.

Download a case study of this project

Also This Year

The price of gold hits $1,000 per ounce and the price of oil hits $100 per barrel for the first time

  • Barack Obama is elected as the first African-American President
  • Fidel Castro announces his resignation as President of Cuba after nearly 50 years
  • Michael Phelps surpasses Mark Spitz’ record with 8 Gold Medals won at a single Olympics
  • Bernard Madoff is arrested for running a decades-long Ponzi scheme – the largest financial fraud in history

2009

Reval, one of the world’s leaders in the specialized space defined by derivatives, accounting, and SaaS technology, enlists Bernhardt Fudyma to upgrade its brand and reinvigorate its market potential.

Download a case study of this project

Also This Year

Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett both die on the same day

  • General Motors and Chrysler file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
  • All television broadcasts in the United States switch from analog to digital transmission
  • A powerful storm brings 3 years worth of rain in 4 hours, sparking terrible floods to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
  • Due to a bird strike shortly after takeoff from LaGuardia Airport in New York, pilot Chesley Sullenberger makes an emergency landing into the Hudson River, saving all 155 people on board

2010

Bernhardt Fudyma is assigned to create a new brand for Applied Minerals that would help reposition the company from a traditional 20th century mining operation to a 21st century high-tech nano materials business.

Download a case study of this project

Also This Year

The Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest man made structure, is officially opened

  • The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explodes in the Gulf of Mexico
  • Volcanic ash from an eruption in Iceland leads to the
    closure of airspace over most of Europe
  • A car bomb fails to detonate in Times Square

2011

Working with the archivists at JPMorgan Chase, Bernhardt Fudyma designs and produces a series of exhibits that chronicle the bank’s interesting
evolution from its earliest roots to its current
standing as one of the world’s financial
powerhouses.

Also This Year

The planet Neptune completes its first orbit since
its discovery in 1846

  • Osama bin Laden is killed by United States special forces and
    buried at sea
  • The space shuttle Atlantis completes the final mission of the U.S. space shuttle program
  • An earthquake in the ocean east of Japan triggers a tsunami killing thousands of people and causes the second largest nuclear
    accident in history

2012

Having completed its first year as a public company, Air Lease charges Bernhardt Fudyma to develop an annual report that communicates how it successfully landed at the forefront of the aircraft leasing business.

Also This Year

A power grid failure leaves over 600 million people in India without power

  • Google's Gmail becomes the world's most popular email service
  • The cruise ship Costa Concordia runs aground on the coast of Italy
  • The unfinished One World Trade Center (Feedom Tower) overtakes the Empire State Building to become the tallest building in New York

2013

The oldest library in New York, assigns Bernhardt Fudyma to energize its brand and streamline their website while maintaining its distinguished character and esteemed history.

Download a case study of this project

As the events of this year are yet to unfold, we'd like to use this space to acknowledge not only our current talented team, Mario Aguilar, Nancy Caldwell, Kate Dautrich and Marlyn Pollard, but also the many other skilled designers and staff who have worked at the firm over the past 40 years:

  • Ken Barber
  • Nick Barberio
  • Frank Baseman
  • Ayelet Bender (Maida)
  • Lucy Biery
  • Carolyn Brown
  • Iris Brown
  • Lisa Daniel (Canova)
  • Deborah Duerr (Markstedt)
  • Connie Fallon (Blask)
  • Roger Gorman
  • Doug Hall
  • Kelly Holohan
  • Bill Jensen
  • Joy Kilpatrick
  • Frank Marchese
  • Jen Markowitz (Whitesell)
  • Sean McCabe
  • Luiza Mec
  • Carol Melloni
  • Esther Mun
  • Nelsa Padin
  • Russ Patrick
    (our original partner)
  • Chris Ritchie
  • Ignacio Rodriguez
  • Ronnie Shankweiler
  • Feliz Skamser (Zonca)
  • JoEllen Smith (Ogden)
  • Jane Sobczak (Whelan)
  • Jung Wha Song
  • Kristin Spix
  • Kevin Thompson
  • Angela Valle
  • Larry Wampler

We’ve also had the pleasure of working with hundreds of talented photographers, illustrators, writers, type designers, web developers, retouchers, photo researchers and printers who were part of the thousands of projects produced for our clients over the years.

Thank you all, Craig Bernhardt and Janice Fudyma