Just got back from this event at the Wilmo in Clerkenwell: an eclectic selection of talks hosted by interactive experience agency Specialmoves. They included Katy Beale from Culture Hack, who helped start Coding for Kids, a group that is looking at ways to introduce programming into the education system which I think is hugely important if we want our kids to innovate in the future. Ben Richards from Jotta talked about the intersection between art and digital, showing off this epic water projection from Latitude Festival 2010, a whole year before Jordan Melo:

Ciaran Park from Specialmoves got technical on responsive web design, made the interesting point that designers are constrained in their thinking from the moment they set the page dimensions in Potatoshop. Then furniture designer Gareth Neal gave an epic talk about some fairly inept experimentation with CAD software that resulted in some serendipitously stunning designs, like this table with segments machined out to reveal the sexy curve of the legs:

His combination of computer design and hand finishing gives his machine-made work an individual lo-fi quality. The individual charm of bodging continued with Jane Unpronounceable-surname from Sugru, with her inspiring tale of the invention of the ‘next blu-tack’. Then there were some ‘young gun talks’: James from Hyper Island confirmed our views that it may be the best course ever, Mike from YCC told it how it is and our boy Jonny said a swear.

And they gave us pogs as beer tokens.

ShellsuitZombie’s favourite magazine subscription service, Stack, has been going from strength to strength since we first reported it (I’m sure in no small part down to both issues of SSZ being delivered in their lovely brown envelopes…ahem) and have now started holding magazine related events.

After 2 successful ‘Printout!’ events they are now hosting a 48 hour magazine making session at the Southbank Centre on the 12th to the 14th of August and anyone can get involved. ShellsuitZombie will be there (stapling and photocopying and making tea I would imagine) and so will many others if past events are anything to go by, so make sure you sign up.

Finally (a week later than planned) we can announce what’s coming up at ShellsuitZombie’s stand for D&AD New Blood 2011. And what a lineup we have for you…

Friday 1st July: Digital Masterclass with Collective London

At 4pm come and find us in T3 to take part in our digital workshop with top 5 digital agency Collective London. Working on a real brief from one of their current clients, Innocent, you will be able to quiz both the creative director of Collective as well as bods from Innocent and sup on a delicious free smoothie while you bash out your ideas. The best of these will be rewarded with features on the innocent channels and a ‘career surgery’ with Collective, in which you will get a free meal and a bit of quality time with some of the best in the business working out how best to get you to that next step and giving you the contacts to do so. This is a seriously incredible prize and should not be missed.

Saturday 2nd July: Zine Workshop with Alex Zamora of @Feverzine

At 12pm The king of zines, Alex Zamora, is leading us in a workshop in which you will be able to concept, produce, print and bind a limited run of your very own zine. We’ve even got our hands on a photocopier for all your edgy montage needs. The best zines will feature on both ShellsuitZombie and Feverzine and you will get a bonus portfolio piece for that extra edge. Bring stuff along to put in it or just create on the day, it’s up to you. Ultimate self-expression!

Sunday 3rd July: SSZ Magazine issue 2 launch and SPECIAL CHALLENGE (with free beers)

On sunday afternoon (4ish) we will be informally celebrating the launch of the second issue of our magazine with a little party. Come and join us for music, a free ice-cold beer and to take part in our party games including musical chairs, sleeping lions and a secret challenge which could win you a shitload of prizes.

Monday 4th July: Advertising workshop with Brave

Fresh from last years incredible Cadbury’s brief, ad agency Brave are coming along to set another challenge for any budding creative teams and designers out there. Get your heads in gear, if it’s anything like last year you’ll be thinking seriously big.

Not only that…

But throughout we will be running our face-offs, pitching universities against each other to discover who really is the most creative. Last year it was Bolton and we have last years winning team amongst the judges for this years contest. Win the kudos your university deserves (as well as a healthy heap of prizes and a bit of publicity too). REPREZENT.

Drawing Wall

Finally we will also be running a drawing wall with 2010 New Blood exhibitors and illustration collective Hidden Dingbat. They will be documenting the goings on and inviting guests to contribute to our huge mural. Expect line, colour and a lot of pens…

Check out a short and shit video of what we got up to last year. Expect more of the same…

That’s all folks. See you there!

A week ago we bopped up to Leeds to run a workshop as part of the uber-hipster Diesel Island campaign (which you can check out here) – our brief was just to do something ‘ShellsuitZombie’ up there, but instead we decided to do something completely over-ambitious and as far as we were aware at the time of their publicity going to print nigh on impossible to pull off.

Isn’t it great, this whole revolution of streaming cloud-based media, taking on the world of TV head on. Why even as I type I’m watching Stewart Lee whining with a guitar in a program that aired a week ago, all through the magic of the internet. So we thought, what with the Diesel island being an island, why can’t it’s inhabitants do some sort of pirate broadcast. The world will finally see, live, what we few can do. And so the idea was born.

A month later, a monday night at 6pm (an hour before the workshop started) and we couldn’t get our £9,000 rented camera working. We had yet to fully sort out our lights, props, costumes, script, sound or cast and we were due to go live in three and a half hours. Yet this was all part of the plan. Our workshop members would eventually form cast, crew, set dressers, props guys, cameramen and boom operators, a feat that they ended up handling admirably despite there being cool beers for free at the end of the room. Somehow we managed to put on a half hour show involving three musical numbers, a bizarre quiz, several sketches (including a disturbing rendition of Tom Hanks and Wilson enjoying each others’ company) and an island QVC flogging bananas, cocktail umbrellas and ‘half a bottle ‘o beer’. It may have been raw, but it definitely happened and some people definitely watched it. Job done.

Here are some photos by James Mitchell – for more check his flickr.

Thanks to everyone who came and those who tuned in. Never again (until next time).

We’ve been all over the country this month – at one point nipping up to Leeds where we presented a whole pile of waffle to students from the three universities at an event called ‘don’t be an idiom‘, a curious mix of caravans, haybails, wax eyeballs and other often experimental pieces of design and illustration. It was great to meet so many of the guys up there and the moment we got everyone dancing to a song of our own composition (garageband, boom) in the middle of our lecture was both bizarre and exhilarating in equal measure.

We are constantly being excited by the creativity and comradeship of the northern bunch – it sometimes seems like everyone knows everyone, regardless of which college they’re at. As a thank you to them (and you) here’s the song we all danced to. Bangin’.

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For this year’s red nose day Colchester graduate illustration duo Phil and Lauren (AKA The Hidden Dingbat collective) decided to help the cause by pictorally transcribing the entire televised evening onto one huge mural. That’s 7 hours of drawing all at once. The plan was to not only raise money during and after the event through their sponsorship page but also to flog the finished piece (complete with as many celeb signatures as possible) with all proceeds also going to the Comic Relief cause. It’s a lovely idea that has produced an even nicer bit of work (see above for a couple of close-ups) – but they now desperately need to get in touch with Olly Murs for the first signature. So where are you Olly? eh?

You can sponsor their red nose day campaign here.

Last week, after a memorable trip up north, we held our London VS event. The industry team made a resurgence, however the overall victory still went to the Grads, winning 109-102 with standout performances especially in the drawing competitions. We managed to once again give away lots of prizes for such bizarre reasons as pegging, drawing vegetable-based superheroes, dance-offs, getting Stephen Seagal to endorse Aldi by doing in-store butchery and playing an R-rated game of Richard and Judy’s Midday Money. Cracking music from Dave Rudnick, flowing beers, foam shapes and yet more hand-drawn willies allowed everyone to get acquainted fully. Super.

To check out more London photos go here.

Our Liverpool VS night was a huge success, resulting in (amongst other things) rude sketches, wall sitting, bloody noses, free t-shirts, posters, magazines and books, a lot of beer, even more chat and many new acquaintances both young and old(er). We hope to go back to Liverpool in the near future, but for now our sights are well set on London’s equivalent next Tuesday. So far the grads are up 76 points to 53, so industry had better buck their ideas up.

To check out more Liverpool photos head to our flickr page.

To see some of what we got up to click here…

As part of the ’55DSL Collective’ We’ve been invited to contribute to their website via this rikkle tumblr blog. So If you’re a tumblr-subscriby random-trip-to-the-internetty enjoyer-of-nonsense we suggest you take a dip. Or not, whatever.

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.

…and it’s a shocker. I mean, the event was mega, a gruelling, intense and ultimately overwhelmingly satisfying 5 days of competitions, rickshaws, beer, chat, heat, football, films, magazine launches, curry and so much else. But this video, is, well, the haggard music splice at the end has to be heard to be believed.

Of course we could post-rationalise the decisions made when editing this piece (‘we decided to keep it fast and loose, just get it out there’ doesn’t really hold up a month later) but instead have decided to rejoice in its forthcomings, nay wrap them around ourselves like a comforting reminder that humans at their very core are fallible, no video is perfect, and we’re all insignificant blobs of matter on a dying planet etc.

Still, it’s under two minutes, it crams a lot in, it has a soundtrack that was released in the heady days of January 1995 (true that, just two months before the PS1) and arguably doesn’t bore (the longest scene is about 3 seconds).

Enjoy.

£2.50 for 64 pages, an Eboy cover and fold-out poster, articles by creative types including Adrian Shaughnessy, Sanky, D&AD, Glug, Eboy etc. Want it? Buy it here.

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.

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.