Bernard William "Berne" Nadal (born ''Bernard William Nadal'', but also known as "Berne Nadall"; 1869–1932) was an American

typeface designer Type design is the art and process of designing typefaces. This involves drawing each letterform using a consistent style. The basic concepts and design variables are described below. A typeface differs from other modes of graphic production su ...

and artist. He was the designer of the

Caslon Antique {{Infobox font , name = Caslon Antique , image = Caslon Antique.png , style = Display , date = 1894 , creator = Berne Nadall , foundry = Barnhart Brothers & Spindler , sample = } Caslon Antique is a decorative American typeface that was ...

typeface, which is still in common use to this day.

Life

Bernard was born in

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

on February 28, 1869. His mother was a French art teacher. After the death of his mother, he was placed under the instruction of H. Clay Wool ford, a prominent artist of the South, but they did not work well together. Two years later, Mr. Nadal began studying with Al. Legras, a classmate of Carl Brenner. Afterwards, he went to the Louisville School of Design for a term and, in less than a year, began working for the Louisville daily papers: the ''

Louisville Post ''The Louisville Herald-Post'' was a newspaper that was published in Louisville, Kentucky. Origins ''The Herald-Post'' was created in 1925 from the merging of the old ''Louisville Herald'' and '' Louisville Post'' newspapers. Louisville financi ...

'', the ''

Daily Commercial The ''Daily Commercial'' is a daily newspaper distributed in Lake and Sumter counties, Florida. It was founded in 1875. The ''Daily Commercial'' was acquired by members of the Cowles family in 1969. The New York Times Company acquired the paper ...

,'' etc... It was during his connection with the ''Post'' that he cartooned the "Newman Ward Granite Steal," an exposé of a

swindle A swindle is a kind of fraud or confidence trick. Swindle may also refer to: People * Swindle (surname) Places * Swindle Island, British Columbia, Canada * 8690 Swindle, an asteroid Films * ''Il bidone'' (English titles ''The Swindle'' or ' ...

on the city, and the result was a suit for damages in the sum of $200,000 against his paper. Consequently, he left Louisville for

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

where he was employed for a time in designing and decorating; his services were soon sought by printers and publishers. During this period he worked in designing initials, head and tailpieces, page ornaments and titles, until he found congenial work for

Barnhart Brothers & Spindler Barnhart Brothers & Spindler Type Foundry was an American typeface company founded as the Great Western Type Foundry in 1873. It became Barnhart Brothers & Spindler ten years later. It was a successful foundry known for innovative type design an ...

, the "Great Western

Type Foundry A type foundry is a company that designs or distributes typefaces. Before digital typography, type foundries manufactured and sold metal and wood typefaces for hand typesetting, and matrices for line-casting machines like the Linotype and Mono ...

", of Chicago. It was there that Nadal designed the

typeface, Which has since been included in a number of popular works including ''Les Misérables'', ''

A Series of Unfortunate Events ''A Series of Unfortunate Events'' is a series of thirteen children's novels written by American author Daniel Handler under the pen name Lemony Snicket. The books follow the turbulent lives of Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire. After their p ...

'', and the 1985 reboot of the TV series ''

The Twilight Zone ''The Twilight Zone'' is an American media franchise based on the anthology television series created by Rod Serling. The episodes are in various genres, including fantasy, science fiction, absurdism, dystopian fiction, suspense, horror, su ...

''. This proved an incentive to greater exertion and closer study, and he soon determined to go abroad to make a careful study of design in its application to the type founder's needs. He first went to

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, and afterwards spent some months in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. He later returned to Birmingham.

References

* William E. Loy, 1900,
Inland Printer
', American Lithographer, Volume 25, p.382. {{DEFAULTSORT:Nadall, Berne 1869 births 1932 deaths American typographers and type designers Artists from Louisville, Kentucky