art | MagentaDot Brands

Young man in a red 1957 Rambler Rebel t-shirt standing beside New Brighton Pier.

From Banner to Tee: Designing a T-Shirt Inspired by the 1957 Rambler Rebel

March 12, 2025 / magentadotbrands.com / No Comments

A Spark of Inspiration Mid-Project

When I was deep into the process of re-creating a 1957 American Motors dealership banner for my friend’s Rambler Rebel restoration, I found myself intrigued by the car’s oddball charm. Its rarity fascinated me. My friend had showed me the 1957 Rambler Rebel in his workshop, which he’s been pouring his heart into restoring, it was in its bare metal current state. Its unibody design was clearly visible and surprising, I didn’t know that any cars were made by American Automakers in the 1950s where the body structure itself provides the main strength.

Curious to understand how this innovation came about, I dove into research. I uncovered fascinating details about the car’s legacy. Monocoque construction contributed to its lightweight agility and record-breaking 0-60 time of 7.5 seconds in 1957 at the Daytona Beach Speed Week. The research also yielded low-resolution images of the car speeding along the test track, and still images of it at Daytona Beach Speed Week.

It occurred to me that the bold graphic design of the banner, with its vintage fonts and striking colours, would look great on a t-shirt. This would be especially true if I paired it with a digital illustration of the Rebel in motion on the track.

Man wearing a red 1957 Rambler t-shirt standing beside New Brighton Pier, celebrating the Rambler Rebel’s legacy. — *Rocking the rebel vibe at New Brighton Pier! This red 1957 Rambler t-shirt honours my friend’s restoration of the iconic Rambler Rebel—a bold nod to its underdog spirit!*

Photocomposite of a 1957 Nash Rambler silk banner in lustrous red with a black-and-white 1957 Rambler Rebel sedan auto show image.

The 1957 Rambler Rebel: A Banner Worth Raising Again

March 8, 2025 / magentadotbrands.com / No Comments

Picture this: it’s 1957, and the American automotive landscape is a parade of chrome and tail fins—cars flexing their excess like peacocks in Detroit showrooms. Then, rolling out of the chaos, comes the 1957 Rambler Rebel. Not a conformist, not a follower, but a four-door rebel with a metallic silver streak and a secret under the hood. My friend, a car nut with grease under his nails and a gleam in his eye, is restoring one of these rare beauties right now. And me? I’m the design guy who got roped into re-creating an American Motors dealership banner from that very year—a bold, period-perfect piece to match his labour of love.

But why go to all this trouble for a car most folks don’t know they’ve forgotten?

1957 Rambler Rebel sedan on a test-driving track, showcasing its silver finish and classic design. — *Revving into history! This 1957 Rambler Rebel sedan tears up the test track, proving its muscle car credentials with style and grit—America’s forgotten badass in action!*

Let me tell you a story about the Rebel that explains it all.

Photocomposite of a 1957 Rambler Rebel sedan in motion as a blurred silver streak backdrop, with a crisp red silk banner in the foreground featuring heat-pressed vinyl graphics. — *Speeding into the spotlight! This photocomposite pairs a motion-blurred 1957 Rambler Rebel with its stunning red silk banner, reborn to honour a rebel with a cause!*

A man wearing a clay-coloured t-shirt with a karearea (New Zealand falcon) in flight print, seated next to New Brighton Pier.

Introducing Our New Karearea in Flight T-Shirt

January 1, 2025 / magentadotbrands.com / No Comments

I’m thrilled to unveil my latest wildlife artwork. It is a t-shirt that captures the majestic flight of the Karearea. This is New Zealand’a species of native falcon.

The karearea, or the New Zealand falcon, (Falco novaeseelandiae, also known as the sparrow hawk) holds significant ecological and cultural importance in New Zealand. It is the only endemic bird of prey left. This fierce predator symbolises the resilience of native wildlife, offering a powerful representation of the country‘s bird life. Interestingly, it is most closely related to the Aplomado falcon of South America. The karearea might resemble the Australasian swamp harrier or Kahu and occupy a similar ecological niche. However, these two bird species are not closely related. This highlights the karearea’s unique evolutionary path and its critical role as an apex predator.

Check out the karearea design in action in our new YouTube Shorts video:

New karearea soaring across the chest of a t-shirt.

An art print of a Giant Bluff Weta in a pixel-painted style, hung on an art gallery wall, showcasing its oblique pose and detailed features.

The Design Inspiration: Great New Zealand Wildlife Photography

December 31, 2024 / magentadotbrands.com / No Comments

The inspiration for the design came from superlative wildlife photographer Rod Morris. Chrissie and I visited Rod’s image library in Dunedin back in the 90s when we were there exhibiting with The Great New Zealand Craft Shows. We were looking for slides that he had cherry-picked. These slides had the potential to be developed into hand-separated wildlife art for screen printing.

Making It Simple: Breaking Down the Colours to Just Seven Stencils for the Original Screen Print

The giant weta t-shirt print finished art, reduced, on a transparent background.

Art for reproduction. Shaun Waugh at the drawing board uses a 0.35mm Rotring technical pen to illustrate the Jewelled Gecko (Naultinus Gemmeus) in a pointillist illustration style onto a dimensionally stable sheet of translucent mylar substrate. The original illustration is rendered in landscape orientation at an enlarged size, 600 x 450mm.

Crafting New Zealand Wildlife Art: The Art of Colour Separation

December 27, 2024 / magentadotbrands.com / No Comments

The Art of Art for Reproduction: Rediscovering the Charm of Hand-Separated Rendering for Screen Printing

In the modern world of digital design, where every line can be perfected with a click, there’s something uniquely captivating about the traditional methods of graphic design. Today, I want to take you back to the early ‘80s, to the Graphic Design School at Auckland Technical Institute, where I spent over four years mastering an art form that’s as meticulous as it is magical—hand-separating colours for screen printing. Rendering shading, texture, and detail to achieve a realistic depiction of New Zealand native animals and plants.

1928 Essex Super Six right hand side front three-quarter view

From Photo to Art: The 1928 Essex Super-Six Experience

December 3, 2024 / magentadotbrands.com / No Comments

Welcome to a journey where the past meets the future, where the classic lines of a 1928 Essex Super Six four-door car, whose chief selling point was “affordable luxury,” intermingle with the art of modern graphic design. I recently had the incredible opportunity to photograph this rare American vintage beauty in the car park of the historic Richmond Workingmen’s Club in Christchurch. Note that the gallery of images from the photoshoot is at the foot of the page.

Capturing the Essence:

A classic 1928 Essex Super Six four-door car photographed head-on — The 1928 Essex Super Six was designed to be an affordable luxury car, making it accessible to a wider range of car owners. It was equipped with a powerful 153.1 cubic inch inline-six engine that delivered 55 horsepower, providing ample power for its time.

A man wearing a bluestone Giant Weta t-shirt looks sideways beside the newly constructed, concrete and steel New Brighton Pier in Christchurch

Bluff Weta T-Shirt: Celebrating New Zealand’s Insect Dinosaur

May 31, 2024 / magentadotbrands.com / No Comments

Don’t say “ooh!”, say “aah!!” for this design is one of the best-looking wetas you’ll see. This print celebrates the recent rediscovery of the Bluff weta, New Zealand’s insect dinosaur that can be found in scree and on rocky bluffs of the Kaikoura ranges, Mt Somers in mid-Canterbury and on both sides of this t-shirt.

This design features a twice life-size pixel painted portrait of the Bluff weta on the front with the option of another print on the back. The Bluff weta was until recently thought to be lost to history, but it turns that it roams free in the scree and rocky bluffs of the Kaikouras and Mt Somers. The grey marle fabric of the shirt is the rocky texture of a mountain bluff for a comfortable fit. The design is also available on a range of colours, short and longsleeve tees for women and kids.

Because the colours of this design are earth toned and the weta is casting a shadow, the best colours for the shirt are on greys and earth-toned hues. The lighter toned backgrounds help create the 3D effect, the illusion the weta is in three dimensions standing on the surface of a t-shirt.

Purchase Options: Shop Locally or Internationally

Shop by ordering here to have it locally printed in Christchurch and DTF heat-pressed right here by the designer, Shaun Waugh, in New Brighton, or shop online at our NZ based and international DTG printing partners. (Use code: “PERFEC” for 5% off your international store purchase.)

Prices for Shirts Printed by the Artist in New Brighton:

Teeshirt: $48 plus shipping
This design is also available on longsleeve tees for men, women and kids
Mens/Unisex longsleeve tee: $58 plus shipping
Shipping is via Courier Post, price starts at $8 for 1 adult shirt, $10 for two or more.

International customers will be charged the actual shipping cost based on the weight and the destination of their order. As a guide a Large Surface Active 185 gsm t-shirt weighs 130–150 grams.

Alternatively our t-shirts are available for purchase at our stall at New Brighton Seaside Market on Saturdays, and at Brighton Gallery and The Creatives Edit in New Brighton Mall.

A man showing the back of his Surface Active giant weta t-shirt beside New Brighton Pier. — Bluff weta beside the sea! The back of our Giant Weta T-shirt at New Brighton Pier.

A smiling woman wearing a jewelled gecko t-shirt walking in the outdoors.

Vivid Jewelled Gecko T-Shirt | Unique New Zealand Wildlife Tee

May 23, 2024 / magentadotbrands.com / No Comments

Our wildlife art print of this rare and beautiful native lizard is so animated it looks likes it’s going to scamper right off the shirt! In this case a crew neck, mid-weight (185gsm) women’s t-shirt.

New Zealand is ground zero for geckos, with more native lizards found on these islands from north to south than in any other temperate place in the world, they thrive in forests, dunes, grasslands, rocky alpine areas, even under the odd stack of corrugated iron roofing. The Jewelled gecko is a species found only on the South Island of New Zealand, particularly the southeastern regions of Canterbury and Otago from Banks Peninsula southwards.

This design pairs best with white, kelly green, forest green, and black for maximum contrast.

Level up your black t-shirt with our vivid jewelled gecko print. The intricate details are printed directly onto the fabric, while the black in the print is knocked-out, this allows the colours of the print to pop more against black of the shirt.

The Jewelled Gecko design is available from our online stores, our local store that supplies our New Brighton Seaside Market stall, Saturdays 10 a.m.–2 p.m., and from our two retail outlets in New Brighton Mall; Brighton Gallery and The Creatives Edit.

Ben, a regular customer at the New Brighton Seaside Market, wearing a grey marle t-shirt with an all-over Bluff weta print, showcasing Shaun Waugh’s Surface Active New Zealand Nature T-shirt stall in Brighton Mall on Saturday mornings.

Shop Bluff Weta All-Over: Lifelike New Zealand Nature T-Shirt Design

May 13, 2024 / magentadotbrands.com / No Comments

Don’t say “ooh!”, say “aah!!” for this is one of the best-looking wetas you’ll see. The recently rediscovered Bluff weta can be found in scree and on rocky bluffs at Kaikoura, Mt Somers in mid-Canterbury and all over this artful t-shirt. These ancient insects endemic the Kaikoura ranges and Mt Somers, are insect dinosaurs that you can wear with pride on this unique pixel painted weta t-shirt.

The all-over design features four lively life-size pixel painted portraits of the Bluff weta, once thought lost to history, that roams free in the scree and rocky bluffs of the Kaikouras and Mt Somers in mid-Canterbury. The reference for the pixel paintings are a pair of lively photographs by renowned New Zealand wildlife photographer, Rod Morris, which inspired the idea of having the weta all-over a rock colour and textured t-shirt. The grey marle fabric of the shirt is the rocky texture of a mountain bluff for a comfortable fit. The design is also available on garments in a range of colours for women and kids.