Robert Salpeter of Manhattan and Montauk, a pioneering graphic designer who began his career at IBM and started his own studio, died on Sept. 8 at the age of 88. He had been ill with pancreatic cancer.
A protégé of the art director and graphic designer Paul Rand at IBM, he developed a specific style. “Quality was the through-line, no embellishment,” his wife, Regina Weinreich, wrote. “Though this was the ‘Mad Men’ era, when he put together his book [‘Communicating: Graphic Design’] he did not want to say much about the advertising world, even though that would have been on trend. He preferred to stay on point, focused on the problem-solving of each work, deflecting the personal.”
“I approach my design work as a communication problem,” Mr. Salpeter once said.
His career began in New York. After studying at the School of Industrial Art from 1949 to 1953 and the School of Visual Arts from 1956 to 1958, he worked at various firms, including IBM from 1960 to 1971, designing product literature and exhibits. With Arthur Appel in 1971, he programmed an IBM 360 to produce the first-known computer-generated origami.
As legend has it, he left IBM after a joke. Asked to come up with an ad campaign for a new typewriter, he made a mockup: “The new IBM Selectric has something no other typewriter has.” In the corner an element, the round type-producing part, had a shadow on it to look like two in a cluster. “Balls.”
They fired him on the spot. Mr. Salpeter went on to start his own firm and often worked for IBM. The incident was later featured in textbooks on business mismanagement. The ad itself is often imitated.
On his own, in 1972 he was commissioned to create the Human Variation Exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History and the History of Golf exhibit at the World Golf Hall of Fame in Florida. His work has been shown at the Louvre in Paris and is collected in archives throughout the world.
Mr. Salpeter received awards from the American Institute of Graphic Arts, the Art Directors Club of New York, the Type Directors Club, and Design International in Paris, among others.
Born on Oct. 16, 1935, he enjoyed magic, particularly mentalism, tennis, and he was a ranked chess player.
“When I met him in the early 1980s — a random invite to a party a guy named Bob gave on the Saturday night of the Thanksgiving weekend in Montauk — he was doing paste-ups and mechanicals in his studio on East 31st Street,” Ms. Weinreich said. “Self-taught, he was fearless as the industry moved to computers.” She called him an inspiration and an aesthetic guide.
“Commercial art was poo-pooed, as Pop Art and Andy Warhol were finding new appreciation. Bob Salpeter’s work contributed to a re-evaluation of graphic design as art.”
In addition to his wife, he is survived by a son, Rick Salpeter of Westport, Conn., two daughters, Nina Salpeter and Jane Salpeter, both of Manhattan, and four grandchildren.
