Of all the design for government funded public schemes and services, ‘Life. Be in it.‘ one has to be the best and most memorable for anyone growing up in Australia in the 70s and 80s. The Life. Be In It. [lifebeinit.org] campaign encouraged people to be more active and to participate in sports and physical recreation [wikipedia]. The man behind both the iconic illustrations and Norm, the world’s second most famous couch potato (after Homer Simpson), is Alex Stitt. ☀ Linefeed’s Notes: Out of the many unsung heroes of Australian Graphic Design, Alex Stitt is king. For a long time his signage shaky hand-drawn style was everywhere. It featured in the songbooks handed out to kids in schools across the country. It featured in ads for The Age newspaper in Melbourne (for which he drew the ‘Icpota‘ character). His work was seen in public service announcements such as the ‘Slip. Slop. Slap.‘ campaign and, of course, in the Life. Be in it. series which ran onto wall calendars, televisions ads (I’ve included the most well known one below, apologies for the poor picture quality), frisbees… you name it, Life. Be in it. was on it. In short, to know Australian design in the late 70s/early 80s was to know the work of Alex Stitt. It’s typical of a country that tends to regard graphic design as a mere decoration, that this hugely influential designer has hardly been recognised to date. A retrospective is in order methinks. C’mon Australia. Be in it.

Update: Check Heath’s comment after this post for iMDB links to films featuring Stitt’s work.

Heath Killen [madebyhk.com] is an Australian freelance graphic designer / illustrator and general Aussie design enthusiast who has very kindly allowed Linefeed to repost his quintessential guide to Australian graphic design icons. You can see the original article in it’s entirety here [madebyhk.com/australian-icons] or keep visiting linefeed for additional notes and more.