Author(s): Alexander Stitt

REM Design

Stitt Autobiographics is a pictorial record of the 50-year professional life of graphic designer Alex Stitt, who has been the hand behind many aspects of Australia's culture since the 1950s, and has been described by Phillip Adams as one of the country's most under-recognised creative talents. Though his name remains relatively unknown, millions of Australians are still familiar with Stitt's drawings and animated films, most of which date back to the 1970s and 1980s. Stitt has created Australian icons like Norm of 'Life. Be in it'; Hector the Cat, who taught road safety rules to school children; ICPOTA, who encouraged the use of the classified pages of the Age; and Sid, the lisping, dancing seagull from 'Slip, Slop, Slap' for the Cancer Council. Stitt's virtuosity is the stuff of legend among his family, friends, colleagues, clients and associates. He singlehandedly produced some of the first television commercials ever seen in Australia before he turned 20. Stitt Autobiographics started as a digital assembly of work produced over Stitt's 50-year career as a graphic designer and evolved into a personal account of how, why and for whom the work happened, who helped and how it all worked out. The book includes more than 1800 illustrations, as well as pages of comic strips and whole small books, storyboards and film title frames. It has some terrible flops as well as some fabulous success stories. Like most of what Alex Stitt creates, the book is a one-off original.