Bernd Polster (born 22 June 1952) is an author.[1] He spent the first eleven years of his life in the village Winsen an der Aller in Northern Germany. As he was visiting secondary school in Celle he cofounded and designed the prize winning school magazine bi; 1970 its second issue was illegelized because of an educational "sex supplement". He studied in Bochum, where he listened to the lectures of the marxist philosopher Leo Kofler, and in Bonn. His main field of interest was „Kritik der bürgerlichen Wissenschaft“ (Critique of bourgeois science). He was awarded his diploma in psychology - instead of the required experiment - for a philosophical thesis on the topic „Wissen als Vorraussetzung wissenschaftlichen Lernens" (Knowledge as a requirement for scientific learning), an examination of the incompetences of academical psychology.
After some years as school psychologist in Ahrweiler and Cologne he picked up an interest for photography and art. Exhibitions with collages, drawings, and photographs of punk musicians and shut down filling stations followed. In 1980 he began working as freelance author.
Since the late Nineties Bernd Polster has been running normalbuch as chief editor and art director, an office for the conceptual design and production of illustrated books (book packaging), with Eduard Rühmann (founder of normal records, one of the early German independent labels), as well as formguide.de, an internet platform for German furniture and home accessory design. Followed by formweh.de, a design blog. As an author and editor of many design books he is seen[by whom?] as a renowned expert on international design history.
He lives in Bonn with his wife and two children.