Walter Bernard has designed and art directed many of the country’s best-known magazines and newspapers. He was art director of New York magazine for nine years, as it established a new standard for city and regional magazines. In 1977, his redesign of Time magazine (which he then art directed for the next three years) brought innovative information graphics, illustration and graphic design to the newsweekly. Other credits include the redesign of The Atlantic Monthly, Fortune magazine (1982) and Adweek, a weekly trade publication. In 1983, Bernard and his teacher, mentor, and friend Milton Glaser formed WBMG. Together, they have designed over 100 magazines and newspapers in the United States, Europe and Asia.

Bernard began his career as a designer in the art department of Ingenue magazine. He moved to American Heritage in 1962 where he designed the World War I book. In 1964 he became the Assistant Art Director of Esquire magazine, where he remained until he moved to New York in 1968 at the urging of Milton Glaser and Clay Felker. From 1967 to 1969 he also art directed Book World, the Sunday book review section of The Washington Post and Chicago Tribune. In 1978 Bernard designed High Tech, a seminal interior design book written by Joan Kron and Suzanne Slesin.

Under the banner of WBMG, Bernard has been responsible for the complete redesigns of several major newspapers: The Washington Post in the U.S., La Vanguardia in Barcelona, and O Globo in Rio de Janeiro. He has also consulted on design projects for The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Dallas Times Herald, The East Hampton Star, The New York Daily News, National Post (Canada) and ABC, Madrid’s leading daily newspaper. Magazine clients in the United States include: Time, U.S. News & World Report, Adweek, Plum, Crain’s Chicago Business, Family Circle, The Nation, Autoweek, USA Weekend, PC Magazine and Wine Spectator. WBMG has created original prototype designs for Manhattan, Inc., The Journal of Art, and ESPN Magazine. In Europe, WBMG has developed and created the original format for Alma (a women’s service magazine), and Zeus (a cultural newspaper). The firm has redesigned L’Express, Lire (a French literary magazine), Jardin des Modes (women’s fashion), L’Espresso in Rome and Business Tokyo in Japan. WBMG has also designed the American Express Annual Report for three years, as well as several books, including Cadillac and Muhammad Ali: Memories for Rizzoli, ESPN’s SportsCentury and The Gospel According to ESPN for Hyperion.

Other projects include: art direction and design of three special issues of Time magazine, the redesign of Barron’s, Fortune (1996), Golf Digest, Money magazine, and ABC, Madrid’s leading daily newspaper (‘99). Bernard and Glaser also designed the title sequences for the movies Sleepless in Seattle (’93), and You’ve Got Mail (’98, with Mirko Ilic) for Nora Ephron. They are co-creators of Our Times, a 720 page visual history of the 20th Century published in the fall of 1995, and reissued in 2000. Recent projects include the prototype for the new Saturday Wall Street Journal, the redesign of Smart Money magazine, Plum magazine, and a proposal for a new magazine, Law & Order.

Bernard has won numerous awards, including gold and silver medals, from the Art Directors Club, the American Institute of Graphic Arts, the Society of Publication Designers, and the Society for Newspaper Design. He has taught at SVA and Cooper Union in New York City, and for the last 13 years at The Stanford Professional Publishing Course. He also lectures (on magazine and newspaper design) at seminars, schools and design associations in the United States and Europe.