Born in Basel, after four years of training at the Basel General Trade School and an apprenticeship as a decorative painter, Burkhard Mangold moved to Paris in 1894 with Hans Frei, who later became a well-known engraver and medallist. There he was impressed by the decorative paintings of Pierre Victor Galland and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, which inspired him to study ornamentation in greater depth. After studying at Friedrich Fehr's painting school in Munich from 1894 to 1900 and traveling through Italy, he moved into his own studio in Basel, which he designed himself based on the model of Gustav Klimt.

On the occasion of the 400th anniversary of Basel's entry into the Swiss Confederation, he illustrated the festival guide and designed the stage sets and costumes. He was an all-rounder: painter, graphic artist, type designer, stained glass designer, illustrator, costume designer, singer, and amateur actor. And he practiced his profession on a grand scale: in 1896, he received from King Carol

I. Romania commissioned him to paint the facade of Peles Castle in the Carpathians, together with leading Viennese artists such as Gustav Klimt. In Basel, he designed the interiors of the SBB railway station buffet, the main post office, the town hall, factories, banks, hotels, restaurants, and school buildings with murals and facades using the sgraffito technique. In Zurich in 1926, the mural in the main building of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology bears witness to his creative power. Towards the end of his life, he was razor-sharp in his self-criticism and struggled with nagging self-doubt: "It is depressing to see that everything good comes about more or less somnambulistically, almost without any actual processing" – he regarded everything that succeeded as a gift.

In addition to posters such as the one for the Swiss Singers' Festival in Zurich, which won an award in 1905, he designed invitations and advertising materials for industry and tourism: the "D A V O S" poster series is particularly well known. He was a pioneer of advertising graphics and poster art, in which he achieved great mastery and gained international recognition.