Products
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.
We at ShellsuitZombie don’t usually dabble in the seedy world of politics but a recent opportunity allowed one of our number to design a print and online publication for three of the most read political blogs in the country, Left Foot Forward (in the red corner), ConservativeHome (blue) and Lib Dem Voice (yeller). The result was LITMUS, a collaborative project co-ordinated by the Rebel Alliance, a brilliantly named (and brilliantly brilliant) team aiming to unite fans with the organisations, brands and in this case questions that matter to them.
Eighteen big hitters from across the political spectrum answered six of the toughest questions facing the UK today and the debate was opened through the three blogs as well as everyone’s favourite micro-blogging platform. Print editions are going out to all attendees at the political conferences happening this month but us normos can download the free pdf version from the LITMUS website right here.
Impress your mates, quote Chuka Umunna MP at Oceana next weekend. Dares ya.
OH MORE NEWSPRINT *yawn* BUT WAIT… Protein, one part of a recent delivery by the aforementioned Stack (still bloody brilliant by the way) boasts clean lines and interesting articles. The layout of the print edition of the hulking creative behemoth that is Protein is all thanks to Max over here. Part designer, part illustrator, Max wanders the earth feasting only on raw meat while constantly filling books of scribbles like some cross between the bad guy from Se7en and Forest Gump*. His website is dead tasty too.
Read Protein Journal in it’s entirety here.
*This is a lie, literally never met the guy.
Thousands of logos animated into an award winning short film with stunning visuals and snappy screenplay. Directed by talented Frenchmen H5, François Alaux, Hervé de Crécy and Ludovic Houplain. Watch out for Big Boy’s wandering hands…
This post comes from the heart. If you are at all interested in print, independent magazines or free bloody speech then you need to subscribe to this service; it has, quite frankly, changed my life.*
The concept of Stack is to promote independent press by sending subscribers one (or quite often several) independent rags a month. This can range from Eye (RRP £17!) to Little White Lies, Bad Idea, VNA, Anorak, the list is endless. If you’ve heard of these then you’ll know what a good deal this is, if you haven’t then you, child, are the most in need of it.
Strangely though, for me at least, it’s the other ‘free’ magazines you get with the featured title that make it all worthwhile. One example is Manzine, an outspoken reaction to mens magazines written by some of their editors. Reading-on-the-bus-kudos aside, it has helped to reinforce my confidence in the power of a print mag, however home-made – No-one else will own my copy of Manzine, I’ve spilt coffee on it and dog-eared the corners, it’s truly been a journey. I still pick it up months later and it’s as ball-splittingly hilarious as it was the day I got it.
I can’t recommend Stack enough, it’s a bundle of joy landing on your doormat every month, a constant in a world of wars, politics, doom, gloom and digital media. Plus they delivered issue one of our magazine last month, getting them a gold star in my book.
Jonny
*well maybe not changed my life but it’s definitely been the best £40 I’ve spent this year
Can it be true that I hold in my mortal hand an issue of purest AMMO?* With issue three, the cutest little inspiration mag in the planet brings us words and pics from Peskimo, Jam Factory and a favourite of ours Jessica Hische (cue glow of envy due to epic typo-crush) as well as loads of others. You can fit this baby in your back pocket but it’s jam-packed with artists that will make you quiver (ie. Pat Perry – never heard of him before but my is he good…) and is well worth picking up from the AMMO store.
*You’ll be pleased to know that our propensity to shoehorn content into barely-relevant quotes is as yet unabated.
Ashwin is a London-based designer with a very nice collection of work in his portfolio including this poster called ‘The Bare Essentials’. Often a self-congratulatory ‘design about design’ concept combined with the student classic ‘poster over face’ pose will bring me out in a rash but this piece overcomes that by being really rather pretty with some intricate use of colour (The clock has a red second hand for example). You can buy it an’ all.
Loughborough grad Ben Marsh has some fun new work up, including a twist on condom packaging for all us kids born in the 80′s. Donkey Shlong = MEGAWIN.
The day has finally arrived when we can announce our print mag – 64 pages of B5 glory wrapped in an Eboy original limited-edition-for-this-magazine-only illustration which also extends onto a B3 poster (included for free, naturally) all for £2.50. It’s taken tiiime to get to this stage and we’re über-excited to bring this beast to life.
The launch party is being held at our stand at the D&AD New Blood fair at the Truman Brewery on the 26th of this month (Saturday innit) – get there for 5.30 to ensure you get some of the booze. At 7 we will then trundle of for a curry and a serious pub sesh.
If you’re keen, check our facebook event here – If you can’t make it do not fear, there will be plenty left to pick up a copy at your leisure from our shop or from various other outlets. If you sign up to Stack by the end of the month you even get it for free!
Some of the topics covered:
Cake, ITV’s Gladiators, paid placements, Eboy, Glug, Moustaches, Haikus, “Industry-ready?”, Adrian Shaughnessy on lobsters in shoes, rickshaws, nudity, FFFFUUUU, Are D&AD any good at pool?, creative tics, idea vs execution, mums on Facebook and much much more. We’re so proud of it, we put our name on it.
That’s all. Good tings.
Some of you may remember our post on the winner of last years Rooted exhibition, ‘Skeletor the Cutlery Skeleton’. Well now the guys that run the event have created their first publication (see above for the page featuring our plastic friend). We were honoured to be asked to judge the event and are even prouder (like leave-it-lying-around-so-people-see kind of proud) to be in the book too.
Along with Skeletor there are some fantastic pieces displayed within a sleek 70 page tome and they are selling out fast – at £10 (a snip) it’s well worth picking up this limited edition bit of ephemera, no doubt featuring the early work of some of the future masters of the design world.
Been meaning to post this stuff for ages – busy times (the freaking print mag/New Blood prep) have led to somewhat of a backlog in ye ould inbox – Better late than never.
The last couple of years have seen a spate of collage-based illustration, lo-fi is very much in. However, the fact that you can’t move on ffffound for lazy ‘shapes-with-bits-of-space-in-them’ knock-offs doesn’t mean there isn’t still some interesting work going on. Stone and Spear (AKA Simon Peter Frank Cook, Nottingham-based designer/Illustrator) is producing a little chunk of it in fact – utilising negative space, composition and cut-outs of wrestlers rather better than most.
His website is chocka-block full of stuff, enjoy…
The Revolution has begun. Rebel Radio – Originally a call-to-arms for Che Guevara’s Cuban Militia, now a beautiful A2 Poster available to you! Get it here and read the full post here.
Printed by Bob Eight Pop
Mercy, a forward-thinking London/Scouse design and creative agency, has started a project this year to release an E-Zine every month along the theme of the classic 1957 film 12 Angry Men. Issue 2 (based on the central character McArdle, for those interested) features such heavyweights as illustrator Si Scott and Megapoet Luke Wright (read his contribution here) – definitely something to keep up-to-date with, especially if they keep pulling names like these out of the bag.
ps. on the subject of Mercy, keep eyes peeled for their other stuff and events.
Craig and his team of vis/ressers have gone and done it again, made an awesome little publication that showcases the best in upcoming talent. If you haven’t got one, I strongly recommend you go and buy one right now, they won’t be around for long, and they will form a nice collection when future issues come out.
