New Zealand Nature T-shirt Store

November 18, 2020 / / No Comments

Celebrating our Surface Active New Zealand Nature T-shirt Company store launch

Chrissie and I are happy to announce the launch of our Surface Active New Zealand Nature T-shirt Company store. You can shop here to get your Surface Active teeshirts.

Chrissie and I created our New Zealand nature t-shirt company and clothing brand, Surface Active, in 1985. 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 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 2020 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,

Surface Active design pARTners: Shaun Waugh (boss), Chrissie Terpstra (bossier)

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Events Management Group branding

June 28, 2019 / / 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.
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Poster Mr Fungus International Comic Mime

Fungustic slaprobatics: a poster for Mr Fungus

July 26, 2018 / / No Comments

A poster for New Zealand‘s loudest mime

After training in London at the Desmond Jones School of Mime and earning a living on the competitive streets of Covent Garden and at various international busking festivals, at age 25 Fergus returned to New Zealand to work full time as an entertainer. He needed a logo and self-promotional publicity kit to enable him to market himself and provide to talent agencies. This poster is a photo montage produced using old school paste up and photolitho methods. Inverting the chair handstand ‘fungustic slaprobatic’ trick into a free-falling Mr Fungus was to play with the audience with a sort of Irish parachute sight gag, and making a poster that could be hung “correctly” upside down and still not make sense.
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Verso of Mr Fungus business card

Mr. Fungus logo & card: make a big impression at close range

July 17, 2018 / / No Comments

Graphics must be purposeful

Recently returned to settle back in Wellington from the U.K. in 1991, having done his time entertaining Covent Garden and international festival audiences, Fergus Aitken was a busker, a young exponent of clowning, juggling, mime and the bizarre who needed a logo and a business stationery promotional kit to advertise and promote his comic mime character Mr Fungus. More broadly he needed to promote his availability for various performing arts roles and as a mime workshop teacher in community, school and tertiary education settings. The first project, a card, would be handed over personally or included in direct mail campaigns to various audiences, where it would be viewed mainly at very close range.
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Sillicon Planet’s world-wide smile promo

August 3, 2017 / / No Comments

When it comes to promoting entertainers, creating distinction is key.

Because of the tremendous competition in the market, promotions for Circus-Arts performers, children’s entertainers, need to be well thought out, be comprehensive and also entertain the reader in the same manner as performers do in order to capture the attention of any audience world wide.

Sillicon Planet’s New Zealand audience is a mash-up of schools, festival and event organisers, corporate clientele and talent agencies.
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A pocket-size showcase brochure in a custom carbon fibre clam for the kinetic sculptures of Phil Price

Pocket-size brochure for the kinetic sculptures of Phil Price

April 28, 2017 / / No Comments

A pocket-size showcase brochure in a custom carbon fibre clam for the kinetic sculptures of Phil Price.

A tight budget means doing more with less so this dual purpose business card brochure needed to show a range of kinetic works. Thinking of my paper as a screen or a stage I laid out a montage onto eighteen small panels that unfold into an informative, a4 size flier.
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Phil Price Sculpture rebrand & web makeover

February 5, 2017 / / No Comments

Phil Price is a very successful New Zealand sculptor based in Melbourne and Christchurch who has achieved international renown for his mesmerising wind-activated kinetic works. A successful web design makeover outcome demanded a strong, clear, consistent focus so that all elements ’speak’ in a single voice that engages Phil’s audience.

For me, graphic design, at its best, tells a visual story with the same excitement, pacing and dynamics of a great movie, play, or musical composition, it evokes strong emotion.
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Tuwing. Kinetic sculpture by Phil Price.

Phil Price Sculpture portfolio

August 27, 2014 / / No Comments

This gallery of Phil Price Sculpture represents a selection of images form an 8 year ongoing collaboration between myself and Phil Price (Phil Price Sculpture and MagentaDot Brands). The collaboration is a work in progress that aims to progressively document both Phil’s completed kinetic works and selected work methodologies. This selection is of the best heroic photos of the wide range of Phil’s completed outdoor, wind-activated works, large, medium and small scale, from civic sculptures to private commissions in Australia and New Zealand.
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