A woman wearing a leaping dolphin all over print white teeshirt

Dolphin watercolour print

February 8, 2021 / magentadotbrands.com / No Comments

Designed by Chrissie and I and printed in the USA and Europe. My new absolute fav dolphin watercolour ‘all-over’ teeshirt print. All purchases made using this link will receive a 10% discount that is applied automatically at checkout.

https://surface-active.myteespring.co/listing/dolphins-leaping-kaikoura-ne?product=823/pr?=DISCOUNT

Promo code: ARTYKIWI.

I love to draw and illustrate wildlife. All of Chrissie and my Surface Active Artwear designs that you see on this site have begun as drawings and visuals on paper. Sometimes as a very closely observed upscale pen & ink, or just a few lines to rough out the composition.

My lockdown project has been to create digital art of our legacy hand-rendered designs to populate our new teespring store with about 20 of our wildlife art and Kiwiana designs for adults and kids.

I’ll photograph or scan the drawing as a high resolution image, and begin building up the image in colour in Photoshop and Freehand, sometimes painting, sometimes airbrushing or drawing in digital pen & ink, I will use a variety of techniques until I have a finished, hand separated, high resolution, multicolour artwork suitable for placing on apparel, coffee mugs, art print posters and other housewares.

Each design is a wildlife art print, a Surface Active New Zealand artwear—making waves in a sea of sameness.

Spotted shags are the best kind

December 1, 2020 / magentadotbrands.com / No Comments

Storewide 15% off till January 5, 2021 here, use promo code “KIWIART.”

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.

Spotted shags/parekareka design collage

My kind of shellfish

November 30, 2020 / magentadotbrands.com / No Comments

Storewide 15% off till January 5, 2021 here, use promo code “KIWIART.”

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.

Awesome New Zealand nature inspired T-shirts

November 23, 2020 / magentadotbrands.com / No Comments

Storewide 15% off till January 5, 2021 here, use promo code “KIWIART.”

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.

New Zealand Artwear fresh daily—Paua Pacific

November 19, 2020 / magentadotbrands.com / No Comments

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.

New Zealand wildlife art t-shirt store

November 18, 2020 / magentadotbrands.com / No Comments

Celebrating the Surface Active artwear store launch with a sweet launch offer—10% off storewide

To celebrate the launch of Chrissie and my Surface Active New Zealand wildlife artwear t-shirt store we’d like to share a permanent storewide 10% discount offer. You can shop here https://surface-active.myteespring.co/?pr=DISCOUNT to get your Surface Active teeshirts. Use the promo code “ARTYKIWI”.

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

surfaceactive@xtra.co.nz

You can read more about the Surface Active back story here.

Surface Active Artwear Teespring store pops-up

April 16, 2020 / magentadotbrands.com / 2 Comments

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.

Adelie penguins, Antarctica

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.

Two Adelie Penguin 11 oz mugs by a floral centrepiece

The front of a white indoor cushion featuring the front view of the Adelie penguins Antarctica design.

The back of a white indoor cushion featuring the back view of the Adelie penguins Antarctica design.

Front view of an Adelie penguins Antarctica design on a white coloured premium baby onesie.

Credits

Design firm: Surface Active
Art direction: Design pARTners, Chrissie Terpstra and Shaun Waugh
Client: Surface Active
Graphic designer: Shaun Waugh

A coolie steps off a wooden cargo boat gangplank. These magnificent Makassar schooners called Pinisiat at the port of Sunda Kelapa, Jakarta, Indonesia.

The right picture: Sunda Kelapa

August 28, 2019 / magentadotbrands.com / No Comments

As photographer & picture editor I demonstrate how to choose the right picture

A self assignment; visual anthropology at Sunda Kelapa, old harbour of Jakarta, Indonesia

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.
Read More

Surface Active: Making waves in a sea of sameness

August 8, 2019 / magentadotbrands.com / 9 Comments

T-shirts in the spirit of fun.

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.

Overview

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!

Events Management Group branding

June 28, 2019 / magentadotbrands.com / No Comments

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.
Read More

Pionair website, aircraft charter page, Tauck group photo centre, Pionair Cargo page to the left, Tailormade travel page to the right.

Pionair websites for N.Z. & Australia

June 27, 2019 / magentadotbrands.com / No Comments

Pionair.com, Pionair.com.au overview

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.
Read More

Auto Restorations website homepage after redesign, showing Automotive Dreams marketing slideshow and table of links to website feature articles and pages.

Energise an image heavy website

April 9, 2019 / magentadotbrands.com / No Comments

Energise an image heavy website by design

AUTO RESTORATIONS, 52 STEWART ST, CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND

Links to PDF of New Zealand Classic Car magazine cover story on the 1963 Ferrari 250 GT Lusso

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.
Read More