After graduation in 1953[3] she worked at the Melbourne Herald while undertaking freelance illustration and book design in her free hours.
[2] Over the years she worked alongside such major figures in the Australian publishing world as Frank Eyre (Oxford University Press, Melbourne), Andrew Fabinyi (F. W. Cheshire), Max Harris (Sun Books), Gwyn James (Melbourne University Press), Lloyd O’Neil, Sam Ure Smith (Sydney Ure Smith) and Ken Wilder (William Collins, Melbourne).
She has devoted herself to book design work, her focus being to create an "enduring body of work unique in its quality, and quantity"[2] and was not tempted by the higher financial rewards on offer in "commercial graphic design or advertising"[2] with the inevitable compromises demanded in those fields.
The poet and critic Max Harris, who had worked with her on several projects, stated: "The meticulous Alison Forbes hasn’t lost her advanced and distinctive sense of the highest design principles".
[2] In addition to those mentioned in the Awards section above, the hundreds[6] of books designed or illustrated by Alison Forbes, many of which "occupy a most significant position within the development of Australian culture",[6] have included: