Jon illustrated the annual wrap-up cover for iconic UK music mag Spin. The guy on the cover, my 18 year old niece tells me, is from Kings of Leon. Can mags here get a bit more creative with their covers please? No? Ok then.

We were looking at @garancedore 's Twitter the other day and she had uploaded a Twitpic of her juice at Colette. We did a double take when we saw Darcel's (single) eye looking up at us from the placemat. It was the day after when Craig (Redman of Rinzen) emailed us this picture of his boy Darcel running amok not in New York, but in Paris. Little downcast devil.

Both Jon Gray and Alex Trochut were invited to design NY Mag's 00s cover. Only two were selected, one for the newsstands, and one for subscribers. The first two are Alex's and the second tow are Jon's. Both have humour but there are definitely differences in the messages, no?

Chatting to Pietari about his latest news, we discovered that he has a piece in Third Drawer Down, who happen to be Jeremy's neighbours! Pietari is our resident Fin living in Spain and if you don't know, Jeremy and Abi are in Collingwood sitting side by side. It is indeed a small world (or maybe we're just all very glamourous and mobile?) Here is Pietari's piece for Third Drawer Down.

If you've ever wandered what goes on in the mind of PAM, why don't you check out their blog? It's like a visual stream-of-consciousness with images ripped from God only knows where. They've just given birth to a pam in small letters and Misha has just finished four solo shows, so get set for more and more PAM news over the coming weeks.

Jeremy is going to Hong Kong to judge the first Greater China Illustration Awards in Hong Kong. He leaves tomorrow morning and is back Sunday evening.

Bao zhong Jeremy! Click here to find out more.

Recently on our tour of Sydney ad agencies, we got a really cool response to Aesthetic Apparatus's poster for The Weakerthans. I asked the guys if it could be bought and they said that sadly it sold out ages ago. But they do have another version of it available here.

It's an open edition, 19" x 25" on archival dark blue paper and guess what! The little window glows in the dark! It's on $25 and the perfect Christmas present for the art director who has everything (most of them.)

Below are some behind the scenes shots of Vault 49's isometrics work. It's a combination of hand drawn and vector work, layered on play dough and photographed. It can be animated and they're just waiting for an imaginative client to take their experiments to the next level!

And here is some work for Radio Shack. There's a real trend we're loving right now: electronic products with illustrated shit flying out of them. More please.

And lastly, here is a gorgeous piece by Vault 49 in collaboration with Ogilvy and the Make a Wish Foundation. So simple and sweet and poignant it makes us a bit misty. No irony intended.

Way back in Feb, Vault 49 were briefed to make this campaign for Blackberry Europe. It's been back and forth ad nauseum (did I just make a lame pun using the word 'ad'? I hope not.) Now the gang can finally show it! They loved working with Inferno who they say also brought a massive amount to the project.

The Sydney contingent is going to be around and about Sydney tomorrow and Thurs.