Design

NOW & THEN, THEN & NOW.

It’s a strange feeling re-living, every now and then, my life through scraps of memories: bits of paper, books, press clippings, diaries, letters, photographs, artworks and assorted memorabilia. There is a strong disconnection between then and now.

My time as managing partner at All Australian Graffiti is one such stage that I sometimes revisit, as I have done in collating this section for the web site. Not that there is much documentary evidence left of that period, nor are my memories that reliable after 30 years. I ask myself: ‘Did I really say that? Did I really look like that? Is that person in the photograph really me?’ Of course not: that was a different being from another planet.

And what of the relationship with my five AAG partners? How did we ever manage to remain friends after all the crap we went through? Time seems to wallpaper over almost everything. Working at AAG was the first time I experienced creative burnout and came close to a nervous breakdown. It was also an amazing experience which I cherish and which still inspires me. On reflection I realize that I have moved on– through a graphic design career which manifested itself, in various guises, over 30 years.

Now I am in the process of discovering another career. Similar, but different.
Building a fine art practice for the next 20 years is my next challenge. A simultaneously exhilarating and frightening prospect.
MC, 2009

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

All successful organizations need a front man and at All Australian Graffiti that role has fallen to MIMMO COZZOLINO. Mimmo, a graphic design graduate from Prahran College and later a teacher at Preston Institute, has forsaken the drawing board to play entrepreneur, studio manager and on-the-road rep for his less practical charges. It’s said he can often be seen striding meaningfully along St. Kilda Road (Melbourne's own Madison Avenue) with a "meanwhile back at the studio" look on his face. In a more serious vein he says, "I initiate a lot of the work out of the studio while I convert energy into action into the studio".

Mimmo came with his family to Australia from Italy in 1961. After completing tech. school he began studying engineering before changing over to graphic design. He graduated and worked in an advertising agency art studio for a year and a half, where he was well schooled in production. He left to freelance with Con Aslanis, who he knew from Prahran College, and All Australian Graffiti was born. After a sojourn overseas they returned to rekindle the creative fires of Graffiti. With the arrival of new personnel, Mimmo became the business manager and spokesman for the group, a job he does with great enthusiasm, a very necessary ingredient to overcome an initial resistance to the group’s non-conformist work. Now that Graffiti has made its mark, he expresses concern that people only come to them when they want really unusual illustrations and ideas and omit to give them the bread and butter work.