During breeding season nature gets heavy-handed with blue-green makeup and punk hair-dos.
With their distinctive spotted feathers, bright blue-green colouring and tufted crests, these spotted shags/parekareka are thinking of romance (and fish.) What else does a shag do in it’s pre-nuptial plumage?
Shop for the double-sided version here, and the single-sided version here.
These black and navy tees with the double-sided Paua print are perfect for the summer. For a 15% discount through to January 5th use the promo code “KIWIART” here:
Cool, clean Pacific waters produce the bright iridescent colours of the paua shell—a watery treasure of New Zealand to keep you cool.
This art print is a composite of a charcoal drawing and hand-separated paua shell pattern printed in 6 colours which gives the paua design a shimmering quality. Illustration based on a photo by Rod Morris.
What a way to spend lockdown! As Surface Active’s graphic designer I built this new collection of awesome New Zealand Nature Inspired T-shirts from a mix of our legacy drawings, photolitho artwork and some new hand-rendered digital illustrations.
To celebrate the launch of Chrissie and my new store we’d like to share a storewide 15% discount offer that expires on January 5th. You can shop here https://surface-active.myteespring.co/?pr=DISCOUNT to get your Surface Active teeshirts.
The jewelled gecko is available here, and the kiwi is available here.
Loving these black and navy tees with the double-sided Paua print. Perfect for the summer. For a 15% discount through to January 5th use the promo code “KIWIART” here:
Cool, clean Pacific waters produce the bright iridescent colours of the paua shell—a watery treasure of New Zealand to keep you cool.
This art print is a composite of a charcoal drawing and hand-separated paua shell pattern printed in 6 colours which gives the paua design a shimmering quality. Illustration based on a photo by Rod Morris.
To celebrate the launch of Chrissie and my new store we’d like to share a storewide 15% discount offer that expires on January 5th. You can shop here https://surface-active.myteespring.co/?pr=DISCOUNT to get your Surface Active teeshirts. Use the promo code “KIWIART”.
So Chrissie and I have run our New Zealand wildlife art screenprinting company and clothing brand since 1985. Our brand is Surface Active—Artwear from New Zealand. As design pARTners we create wildlife T-shirts in the spirit of fun. Our subject matter is native flora & fauna, landscapes and Kiwiana—designs that celebrate some of the unique and beautiful assets of New Zealand, our country that we love.
We have had many requests to make our most popular T-shirt designs available again. So I made it my lockdown project to complete the job of launching our brand new Surface Active Teespring store.
From whales to wetas, paua to penguins—please browse through our store to see if there’s something for you.
All the best,
Design pARTners: Shaun Waugh (boss), Chrissie Terpstra (bossier)
Adelie penguins make everything better. Shop for kids and for adults.
Adelie Penguin kids tees are here:
Paua for the people. Kiwi as summers by the sea! Shop the range of Paua apparel and homewares here.
We believe drawing is an essential part of the creative process and all that you see in our store has begun as drawings. At 61cm x 91cm this original portrait of a tuatara rendered in pen and ink by Shaun has maximum impact as a poster. Shop the range of Tuatara homewares and apparel
here.
Kee-aa! Kid’s Kea New Zealand on a deep royal blue tee. Get your alpine parrot tees for adults and kids here.
Forest floor and Ocean. Two double-sided t-shirt designs just for kids. These lively charcoal pencil drawings are printed front and back—they look almost 3D.
Ocean: The dolphins, seals and whales are
here.
Forest floor: A scattering of native flora & creatures of the forest floor, some creepy, some cute—are
here.
Don’t say “oooh!”, say “aaah!” For this is on of the best looking wetas you’ll see. The recently discovered bluff weta can be found in scree and on rocky bluffs at Kaikoura and Mt. Somers and all over this t-shirt, available for adults and kids here.
Surface Active Artwear • Christchurch New Zealand
You can read more about the Surface Active back story here.
April 2020
Dear Surface Dweller,
We’re excited to announce our fab Surface Active TeeSpring store has popped up! Our Surface Active Artwear celebrates some of the beautiful assets of New Zealand. Please pause & peruse our first two designs over at Teespring—Adelie penguins and Tuatara.
from Surface Active
Noisy, stinky & aggressive in reality but ain’t they cute? This design is a chuckle with penguins coming & going on the front and back. By the magic of art the white cotton of a plain teeshirt is transformed into Antarctic sea ice so this design is available on white only.
This imagery tells a tale of a dramatic before and after scene that unfolded when this formation of hungry Adelie penguins hesitated near the edge of the Antarctic sea ice, then they were suddenly faced with a leopard seal on the prowl in the waters just below.
This Adelie penguin all-over print, is available here for AUD$53.12
Design firm: Surface Active
Art direction: Design pARTners, Chrissie Terpstra and Shaun Waugh
Client: Surface Active
Graphic designer: Shaun Waugh
©magentadot brands
The practice of self assignment can be one of a photographer’s most useful exercises. It is a highly personal experience in which the photographer becomes his own audience—there is no client to please, no specific requirements by which the photographs will be judged. It serves as a way to test your abilities should they ever be offered the “dream” assignment. This is an opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them. Some good images may be captured in the bargain. The purpose beyond any such practice should be to move beyond the ordinary, to break the photographic cliché.
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Surface Active T-shirts main neck label.
As an illustrative graphic designer, writer, desktop publisher; I was a design pARTner with Chrissie Terpstra in our in-house garment screenprinting studio. We learned that hand-pulled screenprinting is the medium of the hard labouring graphic artist.
Of course we were big fans of the humble T-shirt and by the mid 1980s they had become hot promotional items, garments on the outskirts of fashion, and a relatively new medium for the Graphic Designer’s art. What had for a long time been considered a poor medium for Graphic Design grew to an almost essential one.
All you have to do is walk down the street anywhere in the world since the early 80s to see what a ubiquitous promotional vehicle they have become. If you mail out 100 potential clients a direct mail brochure perhaps 200 people will see it. But mail out, or better yet, sell 100 T-shirts, and assuming they’re at all decent looking, you launch 100 walking billboards.
Keep on reading!
EMG Events Management Group was a Christchurch firm established to support the performing arts and project manage the creation and development of large and small scale events such as outdoor theatre for the city council’s parks & recreation department, conferences, conventions and bespoke corporate events such as product launches and fundraisers.
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The Australian and New Zealand private air charter and inbound tourism wholesaling firms had two websites side-by-side, Pionair.com, and Pionair.com.au which I designed and maintained through three iterations between 2003–2009. In 2008 the new combination “affluent travel/private air charter/air cargo” themed redesign for both websites was briefed.
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AUTO RESTORATIONS, 52 STEWART ST, CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND
Making it to the cover of Classic Car magazine, the superior quality of Auto Restorations’ work speaks for itself in this 6 page cover article (linked).
Established in 1973 Auto Restorations has a story to tell. Every year it must mobilise new car restoration projects. To do this it relies on existing clientele, affluent, discerning people who might already know of the company by word of mouth, prestigious Concours D‘Elegance ‘First In Class’ wins, the publicity that generates in classic car enthusiasts’ media, their advertising, website and brochure—sales brochures, basically—designed to showcase the superior quality of the work they do. Showcase the process of restoration, the completed works, among them some of the most refined and rare cars in the world, and do it justice with advertising and promotional material that has the maximum effect and gives the impression to their select international clientele of an organization worthy of trusting one’s precious, valuable car to.
Well crafted and well made custom built motor cars, widely regarded as some of the most rare and beautiful, are the results of the restoration process, a process which varies.
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AUTO RESTORATIONS WORKSHOP, STEWART STREET, CHRISTCHURCH 2009–2012
When shooting informal portraiture avoid distraction from the most important purpose—getting photographs. These photos were shot and photo composites produced 2009–2012, they offer a historical profile of Auto Restorations during that time soon after Allan Wylie stepped up from the Mechanical Shop floor to the role of General Manager. Pictures of their employees on their redesigned website, and capabilities brochure in print helped Auto Restorations transform from a faceless company to people that their customers can relate to. The highly specialised, high value personal service that Auto Restorations’ workforce offer to customers is an advantage that they have over large companies, their multiple international Concours D’Elegance awards attest to this. Good photos of their skilled workforce reinforce this.
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