Zoltán Salamon found his professional path in graphic design after graduating with a degree in architecture. He was creatively active in various fields – cultural posters, typography and the graphic design of books and magazines, illustration, exhibition industry and exhibition catalogues, brands, logotypes, and the design of packages for products. His career in graphic design took him to assignments for children, where as art editor for the children’s magazines Zornička and Včielka he strived to get as close as possible to the creative expression of children in his illustrations. He created collages made of gently torn colored paper and complemented them with simple line drawings. He also gradually began to cooperate with the Tatran, Slovenský spisovateľ, Obzor, Smena, Veda and Madách publishing houses. His book covers are characterized by the inclusion of human figures and geometrical space in which he placed specific motifs. He also frequently employed text passages and short annotations which he broke down into text blocks directly on the cover along with the illustration. He also designed exhibition posters for important institutions and events such as the Slovak National Gallery, the Bratislava City Gallery, the Biennial of Illustrations Bratislava, the Sculpture of Piešťany Parks and the Slovak National Exhibition of Applied Arts. In his posters he frequently used many illustration elements and motifs on a neutral background with the accent of basic colors. He was also involved with the exhibition industry where he made use of his experience from architecture; his regular New Year cards are also worthy of special attention. He frequently used human figures as a central motif, first in the form of collages made of colored paper; through his own portrait and those of his friends and family members he arrived at an anonymous figure and only later created a silhouette of the figure or a standard jumping male figure, always in a different context. He also created invitation cards, brochures, logotypes and food labels, all with distinctive designs.
Graphic designer Zoltán Salamon (1938 – 2015) was born and lived in Bratislava, where he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts and architecture at the Slovak Technical University. After graduating in 1965, he became the art editor of the children’s magazines Zornička and Včielka and the fashion magazine Móda. In 1969 he became a freelancer and focused on the graphic design of books, posters and work for the exhibition industry. He won several significant awards and prizes for his work at design exhibitions and fairs at home and abroad. In 1968 and 1978 he exhibited within two group exhibitions and in 1988 he had his first solo exhibition at the Laco Novomeský Gallery in Bratislava. In 1989 he founded and was the head of the graphic design studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava and co-founded IQ DESIGN STUDIO, where he served as its creative director until his retirement in 2006.
