Design

MEG WILLIAMS

Following her All Australian Graffiti experience, Meg Williams took the traditional backpacking tour of Asia and Europe, working as a graphic designer in London and Tel Aviv and cleaning hotels in France. On return to Australia she continued designing with several groups including Penguin Books and a short stint with Mimmo Cozzolino’s partnership Cozzolino Hughes. Towards the end of the 80s she added some part-time university teaching. Part-time evolved into a full-time lecturing job that lasted for seven years.

In 1995 Meg was accepted by Award School, a short course in advertising art direction and copywriting that offered a position in an Advertising Agency to the top student. She won the job and became Y&R Mattingly’s most elderly ‘creative’ junior. While she loved the work, the relentless hours required of a writer/art director were less appealing and, while on a break in New York with her partner, Meg decided to return to teaching.

Meg’s next adventure began in 2003 when she became an Honours student of painting at Monash University, followed by a part-time Master of Fine Arts degree, completed in May 2007. She is now represented in Melbourne by MARS gallery and in Sydney by Eva Breuer. Apart from some teaching at Monash University in the Visual Communication and Drawing courses, Meg paints full-time. She hopes to live long enough to become accomplished.


From: THE KEVIN PAPPAS TEAR-OUT POSTCARD BOOK AND ALL AUSTRALIAN GRAFFITI. (UNATTRIBUTED PRESS RELEASE WRITTEN BY RENNIE ELLIS, 1977).

MEG WILLIAMS survives as the only female member of All Australian Graffiti. At tech. she was taught by both Mimmo and Con and they hired her as an illustrator as soon as she graduated. She lasted a week then left, lacking confidence and motivation. It took her nearly three years, during which time she did occasional freelance jobs, before she got it together and rejoined Graffiti where her distinctive illustrations of “funny people in funny situations which may be very common, ordinary everyday scenes” have added substantially to the studio’s repertoire.

“Working at Graffiti is very satisfying for me”, she enthuses,: “it’s very relaxed– you’re allowed to write on the toilet walls and you can have apple cores on your desk. It’s a bit more lively, a bit more gutsy than other places. I think at Graffiti were trying to get away from the superficiality of recent design, and for professional reasons I really enjoy working amongst other illustrators. I think it's the only place I could work”.

Meg’s postcard of the Kevin Pappas family enjoying dinner in their Greek/ Australian kitchen was the first Graffiti postcard.