It was made in 2004 and it’s in French, so it’s infinitely cooler than W+Ks Cravendale rip-off. A film about a horse, a Cowboy and an Indian being delivered ‘Le Relax’, a new chair, it’s being revisited as part of Future Shorts’ ONE festival which is kicking off in early November and involves events in 50 cities across the world celebrating brave and innovative short film.
Here’s another Future Short, one of my favourites – the video for The Temper Trap’s ‘Love Lost’.
Well, Vimeo announced their winning shorts from their 2010 Video Awards (judged by an extraordinary array of cinematic names including David Lynch, Roman Coppola and… erm… M.I.A) and the winner was Last Minutes with ODEN. I’m not afraid to admit (having a similar hound myself, 16 and going strong) that I was fairly close to big slushy man-tears while watching, even if the dude is a mega-hipster.
Others commended included ‘Between Bears’ a favourite of mine and worthy winner of best animation (see below). See all winners here.
One of the events we ran last year, a mishmash of students, graduates, industry, music and beer, went by the name of ‘VS’. The promotion for the event (see below) consisted of a poster of which we were very proud. So imagine our surprise when we got an email from Falmouth student Alice Saunders asking to redesign it. The cheek!
Thank god we said yes. We just received the finished piece fresh from Alice’s degree show and have been playing with it for the last hour. Playing up the ‘VS’ aspect of the theme, she has instead made the viewer the superhero, allowing them to don their mask in order to read their tailor-made instructions. In our opinion she’s nailed what we’re about and we’re truly honoured with the effort she’s put in.
Forgive the photography, it was done very early in the morning by a very tired man (not by Alice). We’re going to be holding our next one of these in the next couple of months – eyes peeled mofo’s.
On Tuesday we were lucky to be able to go along to the first of Sanky’s offerings as president of our partners D&AD, this one presented by Danish design supergroup KiBiSi.
Made up of Bjarke Ingels, the young architectural maverick founder of BIG architects (front of the above image), Lars Holme of Kilo Design (back right) and Jens Martin of Skibstead Ideation (back left), these guys painted a picture of the future full of angular utopian cityscapes populated by floor-lit driverless cars as well as present day solutions of sustainable furniture and intelligent bicycles.
What became apparent though throughout the lecture was that rather than hypothetical spouting, this stuff was actually going to happen and these three gentlemen were at the forefront.
The section that really got me was the concept above from a project they are working on with Audi. A thin glass film coating (a tech that already exists) would be placed on city streets which, as well as providing massive amounts of sustainable energy, can be embedded with LEDs and sensors, allowing for a truly interactive experience. The implications on road safety and congestion as well as interactive advertising and gaming are pretty mind-boggling.
The next D&AD presidents lecture, Pecha Kucha, is on the 3rd of November and features a plethora of design luminaries including Neville Brody and Kate Moross. MIMO.
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 -
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.
Our latest issue is out now. Click here to get it!
We have a new facebook ‘page’ (finally) – you can visit it here… w00t!
To see some of what we got up to click here…
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