Welcome to our Creative Community
Since 1989, Illustrators Australia has been helping illustrators like you grow your business, confidence, client base, and community. Founded by Fay Plamka and friends, Illustrators Australia is the nation’s oldest organisation dedicated solely to illustration.
Our iconic logo is the adorable and unusual Australian Platypus, with a pencil bill and brush for a tail, designed by Geoff Cook.
This unique species suits us well as an emblem as Illustrators Australia is a pool of talent, made up of many unique illustrators. Originality, diversity, charm and a little bit of quirkiness are our defining characteristics. Professionalism with a little added playfulness!
Our members strive for the highest ethical and professional standards informed by our long-standing Code of Conduct. Our passion is infused into every project we are involved with. Creating illustrations that are inventive, imaginative and wondrous is what we do.
Our illustrators include:
- Children’s picture book illustrators
- Illustrators for Middle Grade and YA
- Book cover illustrators and designers
- Graphic artists, advertising and packaging
- Maps, historical, architectural illustrators
- Fashion, interiors and editorial illustrators
- Infographics and educational illustrators
- Medical, science and technical illustrators
- Designers, surface and pattern designers
- Animators, game and web designers
- Cartoonists and caricaturists
- Graphic novel artists, hybrid style artists
- Storyboards, concept art and visualisation
- Graphic recorders, muralists and many more!
Our members work in a wide range of media: from traditional to digital, watercolour to printmaking, ink to collage, pencil to animation, murals and much more. As well as promoting artists’ work, we host events and provide support and resources. We celebrate, foster and promote the incredible talent of Australia and the region.
Over the decades Illustrators Australia has produced a source book for the industry, published Outline – our illustration magazine and held awards, exhibitions and seminars. Illustrators Australia changes over time, and is very much what the members make it.
Being a creator can be isolating, especially as you learn how to navigate the industry and establish yourself. We are here to help connect, foster friendships and build community. As a part of Illustrators Australia, you are part of something much bigger than yourself. Apply for membership and become part of the great story of illustrators in Australia and beyond.
If you are an illustrator, we are sure you will find your home here.
If you’re a client, we are sure you’ll find your illustrator!
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We support illustrators like you in growing your business and community.
Our mission is to support our members. Illustrators Australia is not an agency, but we help build careers and community for illustrators, promoting excellence and advocating for the illustration profession.
We create a culture that celebrates and values illustration and illustrators.
What can we do for you?
- Host your profile & portfolio on our high-ranking website.
- Connect potential clients, authors and industry directly with you!
- Post our members’ artwork to social media (nearly 5K)
- Celebrate and share your news through our website, newsletter and social media
- Partner with a great business to bring you lots of discounts
- Provide useful resources for your illustration business (such as contracts, code of conduct, rates of pay, more to come!)
- Connect you with community through our facebook group
- Learn, grow and get inspired through meet-ups
- Provide peer-based support and advice
Other fun things we do:
- Create and nurture a community with fun drawing and social events
- Distribute our monthly newsletter with the latest articles and news
- Interviews, live events and illustrator-made content on YouTube
- Create resources for education, information and skill sharing
- Hold an annual Illustrators Picnic!
- Organise opportunities such as exhibitions, awards, conferences etc (restoring these events as volunteers and resources are available)
Our organisation exists to promote your illustrations. We do that via our website and social media, including our Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube pages. Over the years, other opportunities for promotion, such as exhibitions, magazines, book publications and awards, have occurred, depending on the volunteers’ availability and our capacity. This is something we wish to bring you more of in 2027 and beyond.
By joining Illustrators Australia, you can build a professional profile and portfolio online, reaching hundreds of potential clients every year. Volunteer to get involved in making more happen!
We advocate, protect and defend our rights and build community and business for illustrators by connecting with other arts and creative communities and organisations too.
- Advocate for the rights, better pay and conditions for illustrators
- Educate, share knowledge and foster the highest standards of illustration in our community
- Connect with other organisations to advocate for artists and illustrators – making submissions to parliamentary enquiries
- Create an archive historical illustration culture and resources
- Provide industry advice for clients, illustrators and businesses
- Contribute to the education sector: prizes, judges for awards
Over the many years of the organisation Illustrators Australia has built a strong reputation in the industry as a way to source quality illustrators, for emerging artists to be found, and for us to grow.
Illustrators Australia’s has fostered a huge number (1700 and counting!) of immensely talented illustrators. We have all contributed to creating a vibrant, passionate and extraordinary culture of creativity, in Australia and beyond. We write submissions to parliament and fight for our rights!
Our story starts with Fay Plamka and a group of friends and illustrators, who founded the organisation illustrators in 1989.
Illustrators Australia was formed with the intention to establish a Code of Conduct for illustration industry. What began as a collective of artists looking out for one another and dedicating themselves to furthering the profession, has grown into the nation’s oldest non-profit dedicated solely to illustration. It was established with the purpose to support, advocate and promote the illustration profession.
We gratefully acknowledge the incredible legacy of our founders and honorary members, including the first member and President Phil Masters, you can read more about the early days in his tribute here. Many members have played essential roles over the life of the organisation. David Baker spent two decades curating our Source Books, and Geoff Cook, the creator of our beloved platypus logo.
We celebrate illustration’s rich history and its exciting, evolving future; as our committee and membership take on challenges. We stand up for what we believe in. We adapt, evolve, survive, thrive and play and lead illustrators and illustration into the future.
For more about our history, or to share your stories please contact us, or look into our Archives and Resources.
As an Incorporated Association (#A0019801B), we are a non-profit organisation of illustrators. We are a member-run organisation of volunteers, peers and professional friends working together and helping each other.
Our organisation is directed by our Statement of Purpose:
“The purposes of the association are to advocate, educate and help build business for illustrators.”
Our organisation includes approximately 150 illustrators from all over Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand.
Our committee is the made up of members and volunteers, just like you. We value the support of volunteers, sponsors, supporters and our wider community. Every year we hold an Annual General Meeting (AGM) and the committee are voted in by our membership every year. We completely rely on the efforts of volunteers.
We have a number of volunteer roles for members and non-members, if you’d like to get involved. We would love to hear from you, please email office@illustratorsaustralia.com.
You can fill in our simple survey here if you’d like to volunteer. We would love to have your involvement.
You can read the Model Rules here.
Founder 'Fay Plamka Caulfield', 1993 (Collection of State Library Victoria).
Photo by John Hinds .
Photographer John Hinds' Artist's Books are well represented in Australian and International libraries.
