That guy is Noel. He was at VS. We think he enjoyed it.
On Tuesday the 16th of February, a day that will live in infamy, We, ShellsuitZombie, hosted a silly evening. Braving wind rain and puddles, a krunkload of people came along to enjoy what we had promised would be a night of competition, intrigue, industry and graduates. And against all odds, we think we just about pulled it off…
With creatives from agencies like AMVBBDO, Fallon, W+K, Profero, BCL etc, designers from beautiful boutique agencies like A+B, The Plant, Morph, Magpie and DRY as well as some lush prizes on offer, a couple of cracking bands, beats by DJ and Designer David Rudnick and a lovely bunch o’ students and grads, that made for a fun-ass time. (and the longest sentence in the world. care.)
The Point
We believe that your first contact with industry shouldn’t be in the reception of a design agency, nervously clutching your portfolio. Job interviews are so forced and you have such a short time to get your personality across, yet personality is a vital part of teamwork and the creative process. Fortunately, the majority of design professionals are joke-loving booze-hounds and somehow they seem a lot less daunting with a beer in their paw. Our intention was to create a social atmosphere where grads and pros meet not as potential colleagues, but as co-humans; connecting through humorous anecdotes, not relevant work experience; flipping beermats, not pages of the (immaculately formatted) CV.
The Competition
We really wanted to avoid a school disco situation with grads on one side and pros on the other, nervously eyeing each other, dreading that first dance. So we came up with a strategy to skip the small talk and escalate to full-on flirting. The theme of the night was VS, and so a competitive spirit was encouraged throughout the night. Guests were instructed to pick mini-duels with each other in whatever form they deemed appropriate. These nano-challenges could be anything from drawing the best willy, to a dance-off, to the best magic trick. The winners of the most impressive micro-tasks won some awesome geek-out prizes kindly donated by our friends - including mugs by A+B Studio, t-shirts and posters from Magpie Studio and the limited edition Firetrap gnome from DRY (thank you all for donating these prizes). Most importantly everyone got involved, the air was thick with challenges, and these led to real dialogues between new acquaintances.
Meanwhile we had music from the awesome Keston Cobblers Club and the smooth sounds of Harrison Hope. Later on designer and DJ Dave Rudnick laid down his eclectic beats (So Solid anyone?) and the boozy chat continued.
The Future
More of the same innit? We love organising events like this and will keep on doing more. If you have suggestions for themes or locations, definitely get in touch. Check out our flickr and Facebook pages for more pics and make sure you come along to the next one!
We like Beardyman here at SSZ Towers, in fact I once drunkenly asked for his autograph literally right when he was having an argument with his girlfriend (He remained polite - A gentleman first, beatboxer second) but frankly the sight of six* of his disembodied heads whining and spinning due to some star-trek science shit made me want to cry. Nevertheless big props to the aforementioned science, this video is really clever.
50 students and graduates. 50 professionals. Two bands. Two DJs. Some beers. And unfortunately we will be there too.
Come one come all to witness a gladitorial battle - observe a series of physically and mentally gruelling tasks designed specifically to test us all. Grip your beer white-knuckled as your agility and nerves are put to the test. Or just help us unite the current and future leaders of the design and advertising industries at utilising a mixture of beer, chat and music.
Some people have asked so we thought we’d give you a bit of an update on who is coming along to VS (which is now in a week!). Here are a few of the rival industry crews who should be rocking up for a pint.
That plus students and graduates from all over London and the UK. Bring your uni down and REPREZENT.
We also have some lush giveaways and prizes (objects, posters, buttons and other ephemera) from Dry, Magpie Studio, A+B and ourselves.
MUSIC
Musical entertainment will be provided by two bands who have been picking up lots of radio airtime and have both recently released debut singles -
And second up it’s Harrison Hope, a North London outfit known for
melodic soulful rock.
As well as these two awesome live acts we also have a mega treat in the form of ‘The Liberal Democrats’ - a duo of DJ’s who have recently worked with Ali Love and Erol Alkan (including designing this Tee) and are currently working the London circuit. David Rudnick was responsible for the Annie Mac mini mix last week - believe us these boys will blow your socks off.
Download a free 80 minute taste of David Rudnick right Here courtesy of us.
If this sounds like your cup of tea, click on the poster up top to go straight to our shop, where you can pay the paltry price of £2.50 for your ticket (It will be £3 on the door, that’s if there’s even space!). What’s more, with the cost you will recieve a free badge and a poster on the day so you NEVER FORGET US.
7pm, Tuesday 16th of Feb, The Old Blue Last, Shoreditch. Drop it like it’s hot motherfucker.
In ‘98, aged just 14, aspiring cartoonist Amir Avni wrote to his then hero and creator of the brilliant (if nightmare-inducing) Ren and Stimpy, John Kricfalusi. Above is one page of the extraordinary reply he got from the great animator, the rest of which can be read here. So inspirational was it that Amir, currently in his fourth year of studying animation, is rather good himself.
Skills like these should never die or become irrelevant in a digital age so it’s encouraging that there are still those willing to devote themselves to them. And if it means our children grow up watching beautifully rendered masochistic pets break each other, so be it.
Let’s be honest, for most of us every hour spent online looking at ‘inspirational work’ is matched by another spent dilly-dallying on a mixture of social networking sites, wandering around corners of the internet we will never visit again looking at stuff we will forget and for a few of us looking for/at porn.
Why then is it that the only part of that time we often value as culturally enhancing* is the design/illustration/advertising? Sod that, sites like b3ta, yayhooray et al have provided as much cultural reference for my fundamentally puerile giggling-schoolboy mind as anything more high-brow, and I’m not afraid to admit it.
If you spend more than ten minutes on ffffound** you start to feel like you’ve seen it all before, but it’s highly unlikely you’ll have set your eyes on things quite like this and this. Of course I’m not saying design blogs should have more gags, it’s great to have both options, but rather than sidelining these dawdling hours as fluff, maybe we should embrace tham as a valid source of inspiration. Some of the best ad ideas have come from web nonsense after all.
And who knows, it might just stop people writing something in helvetica oblique on a space picture and calling it design…
*obviously not including the porn, which is incredibly culturally enhancing.
**other image-bookmarking sites are available
Loteria is a card game played in Mexico that has been unchanged for so many years that the illustration collective monsters decided it needed a revamp. The pack features work by some really recognisable illustrators including Dave Humphries, Jim Field, Cameron Law, Lynn Hatzius, Mariko Jesse & Tom Genower and would make a nice Christmas-sitting-round-the-table-after-dinner-but-before-granny-falls-asleep gift and game. Available from some London shops and through the monsters store.
Our roundup of the ShellsuitZombie experience at New Blood is finally here. Offering a mixture of chat, live briefs, loud music, ‘itsa-bitsa’ style artwork creation and general stick-it-anywhere-we-aren’t-precious tomfoolery (oh-err) we managed to attract graduates and industry in their hundreds to our messy corner of the Kensington Olympia (helped by D&AD generously allowing us free air-time on the tannoy - apologies to anyone we disturbed). We collected cards, friends and email addresses in scenes akin to Bruce Bogtrotter and Augustus Gloop at a chocolate convention, met loads of you, got your opinions on us and the industry and had a hell of a lot of fun at the same time. There are some photos here, to see them all visit our Flickr and Facebook pages.
ShellsuitZombie Face-Offs
We held two official SSZ Faceoffs, the first was a two-way between Falmouth University and Staffs University advertising courses. In an atmosphere more ‘intense’ than a music festival (in tents…doesn’t matter) during which we had to hold back both teams from physical blows, the brief was set - come up with a 30 second advert for Lucozade. While the relative merits of the adverts are still being discussed by creative directors worldwide, on the day Staffs were declared victorious by public vote for their ‘joe bloggs beats Usain Bolt’ concept.
The second face-off was a four-way between Duncan of Jordanstone, Lincoln, DMU and the eventual Victors Nottingham Trent, all of whom were given half an hour to rebrand D&AD. For the judging not only did we have Matt Dent, recent (and youngest ever) black pencil winner for his coinage redesign, but a curiously phallic clap-ometer which induced giggles (from us at least).
The ShellsuitZombie Picnic
Our biggest event consisted of a free-for-all overnight brief to devise a campaign for a household cleaner - utilising any form of media necessary. As you can see we had nearly a hundred people taking part in 25 submissions - of which two teams were chosen for placements at BCL - a fantastic integrated agency responsible for Dove Natural Beauty and the current Lucozade Energy campaign. Reports on how they got on will follow. Thank you to everyone that did some work for this, the standard was very high.
Pecha Kucha
To top it all off, on wednesday they let us do a Pecha-Kucha, God knows why. Here is one of our slides, all of which were created in Microsoft Paint. Again, to see the rest have a look on our Flickr page. If anyone has pics of us doing it please let us know, we have none.
So Basically
We had an awesome time, we hope you enjoyed it too. Anyone who posted us your card, email address etc and hasn’t heard anything back, bear with us, you’ll be the first to know when we announce future events, and we will feature as many of you as we can over the next couple of months.
Thanks to:
Morph are a great digital agency from Shoreditch, London, who kindly sponsored the stand and print - Coming soon, a filmed interview and article with Anthony. Eyes Peeled.
Brave - Representing BCL who offered support and time, delivering a brilliant brief and giving opportunities to nearly a hundred grads through our stand at the event.
Lim Si Ping is a recent New Blood exhbitior and the creative mind behind PixelPastry. Her portfolio has already been recognized and published internationally, and really does harbour some very interesting work.
Her Latest project I M Perfect investigates this social issue and tackles the concept of ‘perfection’ in aesthetics by society today. It is a graphic design-based documentation of what people have considered as imperfect about their physicality through self-reflection.
Check out Lim Si Pings other great work at PixelPastry its deifnately worth a look!
A graduate of Salford University back in 2006, Rob has mustered an impressive list of both freelance and full-time work including this slick visual dream for Atari. I love the way he categorizes his work as either RGB or CMYK, lovely stuff.
OK, so this post marks the return to normal life here at ShellsuitZombie after a pretty special week at the D&AD New Blood/Student Awards (both will be covered in future posts) - and what a post to start with.
Obsquare is Iyvonne Khoo, a Central St Martins fine-art (and ex graphics) student whose work revolves around light, involving interactive sculpture, laser and even puppetry (which can all be seen in this video. The photos make this look spectacular, but I can imagine the work is best experienced in the flesh as proven by the raft of commissions, funding and awards it’s stacked up. Personally, it makes me want to crack out the old blacklight, splash on the UV paint and cut some dodecahedrons with my shirt off, but I’ll spare you that pleasure.
A small piece of self-indulgence here - ‘Crooked’ by breakbeat masters Evil Nine has been one of my dancefloor favourites for a few years now (I remember hearing it on a fabriclive compilation in 2004-ish) and on the face of it I am now purely using the medium of SSZ to profess my love for the song, the band and the genre.
However, there is a visual point. The video - produced by ‘preloaded‘, an award-winning London digital agency, was an instant hit both virally and on music telly, and deservedly so. And if I’ve managed to convert you to the music, nip to Marine Parade, Adam Freeland’s record label where you can find Evil Nine downloads galore. Freeland himself is pretty handy too.
This is my second post in a row that involves synth. No, I haven’t ditched my incredibly trendy clothes for a black short sleeved shirt with flames licking up the cusp. This rad synth is the latest offering from Teenage Engineering, the team that bought you the Absolut Choir. I’ve posted it because it’s pretty, not because I understand what it does or how to use it. It does however remind me of my Casio Rapmaster C.1989.
OK so recently we held a couple of events. If you were at one of them, go tag yourself on our facebook page. Or just go and stalk if you weren’t. (If this is you, hi Noel)
I’m confident that being young, fresh, beautiful people, you will have all heard of Spotify. We’ve started a collaborative playlist for you all to add to with tunes you love. Click here to add the playlist to your Spotify then add one song that you love. Try and make it something we might not have heard before. Tune.
