It’s that time of the month again. Ew, not that one. The one where we drool over band posters by Webuyyourkids. We seriously need to start up an appreciation group or something. The latest posters to hit our streets have peddled the likes of Best Coast, Metronomy and Roky Erikson. Stop reading, start admiring.

Yeah, our mothers pretty much drilled into us that it’s bad manners to brag, but hey, sometimes an occasion presents itself when you have to rebel against your old lady. More often than not, our desire to gloat stems from the fact that we happen to have the world’s most talented illustrators on our books. Speaking of which, we’d like to inform you that Jacky Winter artists recently dominated the Illustrators Australia 2012 IA Awards.

Taking out glorious Gold were artists Stuart McLachlan, Nigel Buchanan and Marcela Restrepo. Sliding into some Silver were artists Ben Sanders, Sonia Kretschmar, Travis Price, Nigel Buchanan, Christopher Nielsen, Matt Huynh and Andrea Innocent. Last, but certainly not least, snatching the honour of Highly Commended were artists Ben Sanders, Christopher Nielsen, Sonia Kretschmar, Stuart McLachlan, Nigel Buchanan, Cat MacInnes and Marc Martin. For a full list, head over here.

Diego Patino and Rolling Stone have a good thing going. The latest in a string of celebrity portraits has seen Diego render the likes of Alice Cooper, Katalyst and Gary Lightbody from Snow Patrol. True to Rolling Stone’s roots, the portraits are laced with a hefty amount of Diego’s psychedelic wizardry. We’re looking forward to seeing more of these faces hit the stands.

Holy shit, what’s this? Jacky Winter is presenting something? Yeah, you heard it, we’re sure as Suplee presenting something, and this gift is good. Next Tuesday February 7, we’re getting all arty on your ass and presenting Terry Zwigoff’s black comedy Art School Confidential at Melbourne’s Rooftop Cinema. Based on the cult comic by Daniel Clowes, this movie is for all you fools that endured art school. Be swift and get your tickets here.

Flutter got busy with some animation for pet vitamins and accessories company Rufus & Coco. When Moffitt Moffitt needed to promote the brand prior to Christmas, they knew the best way to do so was to bring the two namesakes of the company to life. Soon enough, Flutter enlisted character development and animation expert Kyla May to work on this lightning-fast job. Working from the script developed by Moffitt Moffitt, 21-19 began by casting and directing the voice over talent, utilising this to drive the piece’s character development, animation, editing and direction. The result was an animation that brought the Rufus & Coco brand to life in a playful, entertaining and ‘furrific’ way. Watch the spot here.

Matt Huynh has firmly settled in his new home town of New York with this Opinion Page editorial illustration for the New York Times. The piece accompanied an article about Native American identity, titled ‘How Do You Prove You’re an Indian?’ We’re enjoying seeing Matt in full flight.

Blue Q, those manufacturers and purveyors of nice things, recently approached Marcela Restrepo to develop a design for their popular shopper bag series. Marcela drew so many nice things on this nice thing that Blue Q came back for more, asking her to illustrate for a pencil case. Together with James Gulliver Hancock’s shopper bag, we’re about to be the coolest cats to hit Woolies.

Jacky Winter’s Travis Price has a thing for Drumsticks, which is handy, because he has a knack for illustrating for them. Travis was approached once again by Publicis Mojo to work on the Drumstick Summer Jeep campaign, which this time around involves a giveaway of 3 Jeep Wranglers and 10,000 board shorts. Talk about some hot rods, hot shorts and hot rendering.

When BMF needed a top shelf type treatment for their latest Amaysim campaign, we knew that Luke Lucas was the man for the job. Luke answered the brief by working up a clear and powerful typographic lockup, decked out in the telco’s orange hues. The mighty type was rolled out over a variety of mediums including three television commercials. See it in action here.

Marcela Restrepo recently buddied up with Qantas magazine to produce not one, not two, but three illustrations for the inflight monthly. We’re particularly fond of the hero illustration Marcela worked up for a special report on business solutions for small businesses. Never the type to shy away from a good map, Marcela also navigated travellers through the wine regions of New Zealand and the top tourist spots in Tanzania. Thanks to this trio of images, we’re flying high.

We always have a good weekend when one of our own feature in the Good Weekend magazine. The latest Jacky Winter talent to hit the news stands was Clemens Habicht, who sculpted this stunner for a story about a turbulent beachside rescue.

Remember Christmas? Jeez, it feels like it all happened decades ago. As you can imagine, we had quite a few Christmas cards come through the agency, as illustration and cards make a pretty good pair. One of our favourites was this little number, dreamt up by Moffitt Moffitt and executed by Lachlan Conn for the Lindsay Yates Group. We’re sure this card would have produced quite a few yuletide smiles.

Ohmygod. We wouldn’t usually use that ‘word’ but we are in, like, car park heaven. Craig & Karl, also known as Jacky Winter’s Craig Redman and Karl Maier, recently completed this mural for the underground car park of a private residence in Sydney. We’re pretty sure that any self-respecting car would be proud as peacock to call this place home.

For those playing at home, the mural installation was by Edward Woodley and the photography by Katherine Lu.

When London-based domestic service agency Happy Home needed to illustrate their services to potential clients, they knew the best gal for the job was Megan Hess. The elegant Ms Hess is an expert in blending architecture, glamourous lives and punchy colour palettes, which is reflected in these slightly voyeristic townhouse scenes. If we had a few quid stashed away, we’d probably indulge in a hint of toff-style domestic bliss too.

Beci Orpin seems to have a never-ending list of achingly cool collaborations. The latest to catch our eye was this cute little number, appropriately titled “yum yum art”. Beci was one of six female artists to work with GAS for Japanese department store ISETAN, designing a series of sweets and packaging. GAS also interviewed Beci Japanese style – we particularly like the question, “do you have any plans you would like to do in next decade?”. We’re putting our money on ten years of kick-ass colabs.

As the sun was setting on 2011, not for profit clothing boutique Dear Gladys asked Jacky Winter’s resident fashion queen Kelly Thompson out on an illustration date. Which is totally understandable, because in addition to being a total fashionista, Kelly also happens to be pretty handy with a set of pencils. The romance involved the creation of three cards and a very fancy looking journal, with all profits going to girl-power charity Fitted For Work. Talk about a match made in heaven.

The gals at Greedy Hen have a way of making paper sing at their fingertips. With this fun fact in mind, we’re not surprised that Wild Life Sydney approached the pair for a bit of paper magic. Instead of sending out a crappy e-invite for the launch of their new bug garden, they asked Greedy Hen to craft hand-made paper insects to send out to a select bunch. The result was a set of invitations destined to be treasured far longer than a bug’s life.

While word nerds were devouring the Good Weekend’s Summer Fiction by Christos Tsiolkas, Maggie Alderson, Mark Dapin and Cate Kennedy, we were busy getting distracted by the pictures. Before you get all judgemental on us, we’d like to politely inform you that they were crafted by the darlingest of all Jacky Winter darlings, Edwina White. With visual poetry like Edwina’s, you can’t blame us for leaving the stories until last.

Super sweet Caitlin Shearer has been covering EPs left, right and centre. To the left we have The Grates and Whyte Fang’s ‘The Version Suicides’ and to the right we have the Rainbow Chan’s ‘Sweet Tooth’. It all comes together to make Caitlin the centre of our universe.

We may be a little biased, but if there were some sort of festival program beauty pageant, we’re pretty sure this dame would come out on top. Once again, Jacky Winter’s Lachlan Conn teamed up with Clemenger BBDO Melbourne to deck out the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival. We devoured these illos so quickly we’re not sure there’s room for dessert.