Give a design grad a job and he'll be employed for two
years. Give him the means to get one himself and he'll be moderately wealthy
with a detached home in SE18 by the time he's forty - Ancient Proverb
Hi readers, we're ShellsuitZombie, a small graduate
organisation whose aim is to cut through the crap and help you get yourself
into the creative industry. Since we graduated just over a year ago we've
collectively been hired eight times, lost two jobs, worked in London and Paris,
freelanced for some great and awful people and for some and no money, lived in
A LOT of different houses, bought six bicycles and baked a cake. Using this experience
(mainly the baking) we set up SSZ to encourage both graduates and the creative
industry to fall in love again.
We try to do this in three ways.
1.
Forget 'Mother', think brothers.
Through our website we put graduates and
their work on a level playing field with the work that inspires them. After
all, what x Art-Director did with £12 million shoot is of limited relevance to
a poor student whose budget is second hand baked beans tins. At our stage you
can't just throw money at stuff, the idea has to be good, and a lot of yours
beat the pros hands down.
2.
Let's get boozed
Don't take that title too literally, but
booze (and socials in general) work wonders for smashing some of the
employer-employee (or industry-graduate) barriers that might taint more formal
events (dare I say, such as New Blood). When the whiff of desperation has
passed, we can all have a larf. Our events try to make that happen. In addition
graduates sharing advice and stories with each other is invaluable - A room
full of them can only be a good thing.
3.
REVOLUTION
We proudly (and angrily at times) act as a
voice against those who would have everyone believe there isn't a hope for
graduates, the nay-sayers who sit on their thrones and spout condescending and
patronising garble about the number of grads per job, the state of education
and the inevitability of our collective fate in Broken Britain. We really hate
those guys.
So
there you have it. We are all working graduate
creatives from backgrounds in design and advertising who have a passion for
making this whole process easier, less stressful and most importantly more fun
for you guys. No-one chooses a creative career as a fallback, it's a way of
life. We've had tough times over the last 18 months but there isn't one of us
who would swap them for a management recruitment salary and an easy time. Sod
that, we make shit look good.
ShellSuitZombie at D&AD New Blood 2009
Please come and visit us at www.shellsuitzombie.co.uk
where you can sign up to our mailing list to find out about future
events/competitions, submit your work, subscribe to our RSS feed and have a
closer look at what we do. We also like twitter (@shellsuitzombie) very much,
so hit us up on that bad boy.
Peace, Love and Cakes Galore
Jonny Burch
ShellsuitZombie
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