Robert Blakeley
American graphic designer

Robert Wilson Blakeley (August 30, 1922 – October 25, 2017) was an American graphic designer, known for making the fallout shelter sign. While working for the Army Corps of Engineers, Blakeley designed the sign as a civil defense measure during the Cold War.
Born in Ogden, Utah, Blakeley attended public schools and served with the Marine Corps, seeing combat during World War II. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1954 and was the president of Toastmasters.
Personal life
Blakeley was born on August 30, 1922, in Ogden, Utah, to Robert G. Blakeley and Elsie Jean (Wilson) Blakeley. One of four children, he attended Weber College and Utah State University.
In 1944, he married Shirley Jeane Brown, with whom he had one son, David Bruce Eppenberger. Robert and Jeane divorced some time later. In 1952, he married Dorothy McArthur, with whom he had two children, Dorothy "Dot" Carver and Robert. She died in 1992. In 2003, he married Irene Allan Davis.
The public source identifies “Robert Blakeley” as american graphic designer. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Robert, Blakeley and American.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 10, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q42379139. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1922, 2017, 1954 and 1944.
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This entry incorporates text from “Robert Blakeley” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.