Interactive
Following from a raucous and thrilling set of creative face-offs at New Blood last year, in 2010 ShellsuitZombie is aiming to find the undisputed kings of the speed brief in the most extensive tournament of creative clashes EVER SEEN*. There will be prizes, internships on offer, real creative directors setting challenges and above all a chance to pit yourselves against whoever comes your way. Just think of the bragging rights.
If you would like to enter a team in advance, all you need to do is let us know. It’s completely free (duh!) but you need to ensure there will be at least two people from your university or team available to play at any point during the show (plus a spare person to watch your stand). A team name is encouraged and there will be bonus points awarded for team kit.
Just holler at rob (at) shellsuitzombie.co.uk with your team name and course name and let the games begin!
*by us.
With speakers from AKQA, Superfad and Proud Creative, this Thursday you’d be a mug not to get in on Outside In, an event right in the middle of Shoreditch, all proceeds of which (£5 a pop) go towards the Ravensbourne College degree students.
Also worthy of note is the video they made for the first of these talks (though you can’t fault anything set to The XX in my eyes).
After the success of previous lectures (including Harry Pearce, see our recent post), the Student-run Designers Society based at the University of Plymouth brings its next round of events, including a lecture/portfolio review/shmooze by mega Illustrator, Designer and ‘Master of Swirls’ Si Scott.
Plymouth is pretty far from … well, anywhere, but this event should be worth any trip, especially as the cheapo £5 ticket will make up for petrol money spent on those winding Cornwall roads. We just wish we could come along ourselves…
On Saturday night ShellsuitZombie were kindly given three tickets to what would turn out to be one of the more surreal evenings of our social calendar so far this year. Mercy, the same Liverpool and London based agency that creates 12 Angry Zines, held the sixth of its incredibly successful (and oversubscribed) nights with Liverpool-based pop experimentals The Wave Machines at Shoreditch Church - ‘Wave if you’re really there’.
This one, entitled Baptism, featured a host of talent in the fields of spoken word, music and performance, with brilliant (and hilarious) vocal performances from Nathan Jones, Ross Sutherland, Salena Godden and David J, Music from Eugene Mcguinness and the Lizards and of course The Wave Machines and some bizarre performance art from a troupe, one of whom kept putting her head in the font (church, not typographic). Everything combined (as well as a BYOB policy resulting in excessive wine consumption) to create a great atmosphere, helped of course by the Medieval/Palladian style architecture of the church itself (yep damn right, wikifuckingpedia).
Moment of the night had to go to Dave O’Dowda from Table on piano accompanied by a choir which popped up out of nowhere (like in Love actually). All in all a memorable night, please for gods sake go to the next one.
(The two good photos are © Tamsin Isaacs, the grainy ones are © Ellies crappy iPhone camera.)
On the first of March a rowdy group of two-score Stockportians and four of SSZ met up in a pub in Kings Cross to start a revolution. An evening of beer, chat, strange celebrity endorsements, quickfire questions and yet more nob gags ensued.
The loose structure of the night meant that we didn’t finish until half 11, by which time most peoples eyes weren’t going in the same directions, but we managed to fit in an initial chat/ramble by us, a complex challenge involving celebrities and their endorsements and a final Q&A. We also gave everyone a dead nice screenprinted poster and managed to fill our ‘book of awesome’ with some strange scribblings.
Things we learned:
1. The students of Stockport college are an inventive lot.
2. James should never be allowed on stage after 4 pints.
3. Just because you call a book ‘The Book Of Awesome’, that doesn’t mean it will be treated with any more respect.
4. Bono could feasibly have a tie-in with Vagisil. (Ooh Bono, Aah Vagisil)
Thanks to all the students and Tutors who came along and made the night what it was, a reet laff. See all the photos on our facebook page and get your very own screenprinted A2 Radio Rebelde poster (see below) from our shop.
Some of our long-term readers may remember us covering the 2009 World Beard and Moustache Championships. Well this is entirely different to that. The London Word Festival is upon us and we here at Zombie Towers are excited as hell about it. With linguistic stylists from all over the world gracing the stage as well as other events ranging from screen-printing to crime-comic- jazz interpretations, this one has it all. You’ve already missed Alex Horne, Robin Ince and various other semi-celebs but there’s literally mounds of steaming culture left to see before the whole shebang ends on the 1st of April.
Impress your mates. Go to a poetry recital.
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!
Peace out playerz. One Love.
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.
re. Beardyman - youtube him, you won’t regret it.
*EDIT: I have become aware that there are in fact seven. SHUT UP YEAH.
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.
Creatives from:
W+K
AMVBBDO
Fallon
Wunderman
Profero
Billington Cartmell
Morph London
Clinic
Magpie Studio
The Plant
A+B
Dry
D&AD
Glug
Merrell
Mesh
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 -
First up we have Keston Cobblers Club, a South London folk four-piece.
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.
William Hibberd, the gentleman behind Just Us. and JADB has updated his portfolio site, which is very nice indeed.
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
Some great work from a really hard working 3rd year student, Alex Farrall.
