Alison Forbes is the first full-time independent book designer in Australia. As a pioneer in this field, she designed hundreds of titles over more than five decades.

After graduating from Melbourne Technical College (now RMIT University) in 1953 she was employed as an illustrator with The Melbourne Herald, freelanced as a book designer after hours, and in 1955 her illustration and design for Alan Marshall’s novel, I Can Jump Puddles, was acknowledged in the Australian Book Publishers Association (ABPA) Books of the Year. It was the first of many awards to come.

At 23, Alison became the first staff designer at Melbourne University Press (MUP), combining this part-time position with commissions for other publishing clients between 1956–63, and later working in the London publishing scene. On return to Australia in 1966 she worked as an independent book designer until her retirement around 2005.

Alison worked with many of Australian publishing’s seminal figures including Frank Eyre (Oxford University Press) who she first met when he gave a lecture at university, Andrew Fabinyi (Cheshire), Gwyn James (MUP), Lloyd O’Neil, Sam Ure Smith and Ken Wilder (William Collins). Max Harris (Sun Books), who worked with Alison on several projects, said of her approach, “The meticulous Alison Forbes hasn’t lost her advanced and distinctive sense of the highest design principles.”

Her books include Picnic at Hanging Rock (1967), The Land that Waited (1967), John Cotton’s Birds (1974), The Art of the First Fleet (1988) and Robin Boyd, A Life (1995).

Alison’s work has been recognised by every major industry award scheme, including the Transfield Design Awards, ABPA and the Australian Commercial and Industrial Artists Association (ACIAA). In 1989 she was presented with the ABPA inaugural Award of Honour ‘for her continued and outstanding contribution to Australian book design and production’. The result of this singular, unstinting focus is an enduring body of work unique in its quality and quantity.

Alison was inducted into the Australian Graphic Design Association’s Hall of Fame in 2016 and inducted into the Australian Book Designers’ Association Hall of Fame in 2018.