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.
Grey Matter is an online super store created by 3rd year Graphic Design and Illustration students over at Staffordshire University. They have all produced designs around the theme of Black & White, and most are available to buy on a shirt, as a tote bag or as a print! Get over there and buy something. Now. They need funds for their degree show! Keep your eyes peeled for new designs being added everyday.
Are you guys as nerdy as I am when it comes to a nice bit of typography? Do you have another person in your life who would just love a type-led compliment this Valentines day? Head over to the newly opened HmBM shop and pick yourself up a card, or four, for that special person, part of the Just My Type range. Also keep your eyes peeled for more splendid graphic ephemera in the coming months!
In between sorting out crap for you guys to do (cue shameless plug for our BIG EVENT) and picking our noses, us here at ShellsuitZombie occasionally venture into the chasm of BS that is Twitter. It’s the tool you love and hate, like that potato-peeler with an uncomfortable grip that cuts so damn good*. And sometimes while sneaking around trying to tweet unnoticed we stumble upon a talented designer/illustrator like Shane.
This guy graduated only this year but his work shows a maturity beyond his years. With influences from Build to Non-Format, the Horndog** clearly knows his design, and we look forward to encountering him further in the future.
*note to self, never attempt another analogy. Ever.
** This name is Unapproved by Shane, but we like it.
William Hibberd, the gentleman behind Just Us. and JADB has updated his portfolio site, which is very nice indeed.
These have been here for a while, but they are remarkable. An interesting insight to see how design trends come, go, then come back again. I’ve seen some exact copies of these 1970’s logos around today, although I’m not going to name names…
Ricky Diaghe graduated in June from University of Creative Arts, the duration of his design degree seemingly having been spent wiggling his arms around in the dark. As a result his impressively large collection of light art shows what can be achieved with just a maglight/bike light/candle/flare and a camera with a long exposure function.
Hyperkit have an exhibition of ‘vitreous enamelled plaques featuring different letters and numbers‘ on at the mo - it’s at the House of Propellers until the end of January, during which you can purchase yourself a number or two and hold them in your hands or put them on your door.
However this exhibition is only the latest in a good and varied body of work from the London-based design house which was founded in 2001 by Kate Sclater and Tim Balaam, then two fresh-faced graduates. Their enviable client-list and the amount of column-space they have taken up in the glossy design mags since is proof that it can be done, and done well. Bravo sah!
ps. Vitreous. vitreous. vitreous vitreous vitreous vitreous vitreous vitreous…..vitreousvitreousvitreous. Great word.
Simon Page started this poster project just for a larf, but it got spotted by the stargazers at the IYA and is now being used in their official campaign. What’s more, he will soon (in the next couple of days) be selling them via his website. A perfect print to offset the laddishness of the lame ‘kiss’ door poster in your student flat. Does it scare you how well we know you?
Honest to god, if I could post every image on this guys website on here I would. I mean, technically I could do that but I’d rather spend that time persuading you to look at the site itself. Editorial design rarely gets classier than this.
This poster explains everything that’s going on really. If you’re in or around Bristol in November go and have a scan.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
…of Joy Division, but when I stumbled across this in Manchester city centre I couldn’t help but be impressed. It brought a smile to my face on a rainy day. Artist unknown.
If you get hot over idents, be prepared to cross your legs and hope the boss/girlfriend/mum doesn’t see. Cue the latest offering from ManvsMachine, the new identity for the Sci-Fi channel, now rebranded ‘SyFy’ See the full project here.
Nicola Woowat just graduated from Sheffield Hallam University with BA(Hons) Graphic Design. We bumped into her at New Blood where she handed over one of her floppy business cards made from latex and acryclic-based inks. Using the same experimental method, Nicola produced a poster series. We got in touch to ask more about the process.
“For the poster I etched my design into a large single sheet of acrylic using the laser cutter, this had to be the same dimensions as the poster as I had to do it all in one go. I etched the design in reverse for it to come out the right way round from the mould. I mixed my latex, which is a liquid, with my colour, I used acrylic ink, and then poured it over the sheet of acrylic- I needed a lot of it! I had to pour it right up to the edge of the acrylic sheet to cover the area, so it needed to be in a DIY card box to stop it flowing everywhere (which had happened in previous attempts!) Then I just needed to wait for it to set, peel it
off the acrylic carefully and cover it in talcum powder front and back to stop it sticking together.” Click here to see more of Nicola’s work.
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)
then click here
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.
ShellsuitZombie is supported by D&AD. Click here to see what they do.
