Surface Active t-shirt design

Surface Active | The New Zealand Nature T-shirt Company.

‘Ocean – New Zealand’ one colour children’s T-shirt print on navy blue and jade green fabric. Placement; One colour front and back. ‘Puff’ printed emboss effect ink.

‘Ocean – New Zealand’ and ‘Seashore – New Zealand’ one colour children’s T-shirt prints on navy blue and jade green fabric. Placement; One colour front and back. ‘Puff’ printed emboss effect ink.

Saltwater crayfish – koura. Charcoal and ink on coquille board drawing.

‘Forest floor – New Zealand’ one colour children’s T-shirt print on unbleached cotton and dark green fabric. Placement; One colour front and back. ‘Puff’ printed emboss effect ink.

Chrissie models ‘Kiwi – New Zealand’ the first of our mixed digital and drawing board graphics. ‘Puff’ printed emboss effect ink.

‘Sandy shore’ one colour garment print on grey marle fabric. Placement; front and back, with a smaller complimentary designalong the hemline on the back.

‘Sandy shore’ one colour garment print on unbleached cotton fabric. Placement: front and back, with a smaller complimentary design along the hemline on the back.

‘Taniwha Aotearoa – Maori rock art New Zealand. One colour T-shirt print on black fabric. Placement; larger graphic on front complementary smaller graphic back. Front print metallic gold manual colour blend.

‘Taniwha Aotearoa – Maori rock art New Zealand. One colour long sleeve T-shirt print on black fabric. Placement; larger graphic on front complementary smaller graphic back. Front print metallic gold manual colour blend.

‘Treefern New Zealand’ T-shirt, two colour print on dark green fabric. Printed front and sleeve of garment.

‘Tapa NZ’ children’s T-shirt on unbleached cotton fabric. 2 colours placed front, back and sleeves.

‘Tapa NZ’ two colour T-shirt on unbleached cotton fabric. Placement; 2 colours placed front, back and sleeves.

‘Light of the Pacific – Nuclear-free New Zealand’ T-Shirt. Two colour print on navy and unbleached cotton fabric. Placement; Two colour front, small complementary one colour back, ssleeves printed one colour ‘sharkstooth’ woodcut as piecework.

‘Light of the Pacific – Nuclear-free New Zealand’ T-Shirt. Two colour print on navy and unbleached cotton fabric. Placement; Two colour front, small complementary one colour back, sleeves printed one colour ‘sharkstooth’ woodcut as piecework.

‘Light of the Pacific – Nuclear-free New Zealand’ T-Shirt. Two colour print on unbleached cotton fabric. Placement; Two colour front, small complementary one colour back, sleeves printed one colour ‘sharkstooth’ woodcut as piecework.

Surface Active catalogue of graphic T-shirt designs, 1994–95. Concertina fold “paper dolls” presentation concept. Vivid Rod Morris kea plumage detail cover graphic.

‘Adelie Penguins, Antarctica’ adult’s and children’s two colour T-shirt print on white fabric. Placement; Complementary graphics, two colours front and back.

‘Pukeko New Zealand’ four colour T-shirt print on navy blue fabric. Placement; 4 colours front with small complementary 3 colour print on the back.

‘Pukeko New Zealand’ four colour children’s T-shirt print on navy blue fabric. Placement; 4 colours front with small complementary 3 colour print on the back.

‘Adelie Penguins, Antarctica’ adult’s and children’s two colour T-shirt print on white fabric. Placement; Complementary graphics. two colours front and back.

Beautiful type makes a statement of its own; it adds elegance and attitude to my words; The tuatara is a two colour “pen & ink” wildlife art design printed using three dimensional “puff” inks.

‘Tuatara – Living fossil map’ two colour T-shirt print on black fabric using opaque and three dimensional puff inks.

‘Paua Aotearoa’ T-shirt, four colour print on black fabric. Placement; four colour front, complementary small one colour graphic on back. Piecework kowhaiwhai print on sleeves.

‘Paua Aotearoa’, adults and kids T-shirt, four colour print on navy and black fabric. Adult garment a four colour print. Placement; four colour front, one complementary small one colour print on back. Piecework kowhaiwhai print on sleeves.

‘Paua Aotearoa’ T-shirt, four colour print on black fabric. Placement; four colour front, complementary small one colour graphic on back. Piecework kowhaiwhai print on sleeves. Model: Shaun.

Weta long sleeve T-shirt on oatmeal marle fabric. Six colour print. Placement; piecework, front, back and sleeve.

‘Weta – New Zealand’ T-shirt, adults and kids, on oatmeal and grey marle fabric. Adult garment a six colour print. Placement; piecework, front, back and sleeve.

‘Weta – New Zealand’ six colour print T-shirt on light brown marle fabric. Placement; Six colour print as piecework, front, back and sleeve.

‘Weta – New Zealand’ T-shirt, adults and kids, on oatmeal and grey marle fabric. Adult garment a six colour print. Placement; piecework, front, back and sleeve.

Surface Active T-shirt swingtag front.

Surface Active T-shirt swingtag back.

Surface Active ‘Kiwi Space Shuttle’ T-shirt, mixed media, digital illustration.

‘Kiwi Space Shuttle’ print detail.

‘Sperm Whale – Kaikoura New Zealand’ T-shirt, five colour print on white or dark blue-green fabric. Placement; five colour print back, complementary small one colour graphic on front.

Surface Active well made in New Zealand t-shirt neck label.

‘Spotted Shags – New Zealand’ T-shirt, seven colour print on grey marle fabric. Placement; seven colour front, one colour woodcut around hem front and back.

‘Spotted Shags – New Zealand’ T-shirt, seven colour print on navy blue fabric. Placement; seven colour front, one colour woodcut around hem front and back.

‘Jewelled Gecko – New Zealand’ eight colour T-shirt print on dark green fabric. Placement; Eight colour front print, one colour kowhaiwhai print front and back around hem.

‘Jewelled Gecko – New Zealand’ eight colour T-shirt print on dark green fabric. Placement; Eight colour front print, oone colour kowhaiwhai print front and back around hem.

‘Kea – New Zealand’ T-shirt, eight colour print on white fabric. Placement; eight colour front.

‘Harlequin Gecko – New Zealand’ eight colour T-shirt print on charcoal marle fabric. Placement; Eight colour front print, one colour woodcut print front and back around hem.

‘Harlequin Gecko – New Zealand’ eight colour T-shirt print on light-brown marle fabric. Placement; Eight colour front print, one colour woodcut print front and back around hem.

‘Harlequin Gecko – New Zealand’ eight colour T-shirt print on charcoal marle fabric. Placement; Eight colour front print, one colour woodcut print front and back around hem.

‘Hoiho – New Zealand’ T-shirt, eight colour print on deep violet fabric. Placement; eight colour front, one colour woodcut around hem front and back.

‘Common dolphin – New Zealand’ T-shirt, eight colour print on white fabric. Placement; eight colour front, one colour kowhaiwhai around the hem front and back.

Surface Active wildlife collage design, step and repeat one colour fabric print on custom bedding set.

Surface Active wildlife collage design fabric print as wallpaper.

April 2020
Dear Surface Dweller,

We’re excited to announce our fab Surface Active store has popped up! Using this link you can shop for most of the designs in this gallery with a 10% discount, use the promo code “ARTYKIWI”. Our Surface Active Artwear celebrates some of the beautiful assets of New Zealand. Please pause & peruse our picturesque pixel portfolio— odds-on there’s something here for you. This portfolio is a gallery of Surface Active designs now available for purchase here.

Adelie penguins, Antarctica

from Surface Active

Noisy, stinky & aggressive in reality but ain’t they cute? This design, available here for adults and kids (promo code “ARTYKIWI”) 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 crazy design is printed both front…

and back.

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 you can shop for here.

Established in 1985: Surface Active Tees, making waves in a sea of sameness

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.

The trend over the past several decades has been to embrace more casual clothing, to the point of stone-washed and distressed, though this has in no way meant this sort of clothing has become less expensive or stylish. Brand awareness, including personal brand awareness has been part of this trend—to such an extent that people want, or are at least willing to flaunt, the name of the brand or designer of their shoes, jeans, and bags on the items in question. In short clothing manufacturers made their products promotional vehicles for themselves.

Surface Active art-to-wear

Surface Active artwear, making waves in a sea of sameness.

Surface Active T-shirts celebrate New Zealand’s unique assets

Promotional teeshirts take this walking billboard concept one step further by being clothing that promotes products, services, cultural and ideological views in such a way that the wearer is willing to be identified—whether through a sense of aesthetics, humour, social responsibility, or irreverence, or loyalty to a watering hole, cultural institution, environmental organisation or charity. People are willing to wear someone else’s message because they feel it says something about themselves—which is the essence of fashion.

As design pARTners in the visual arts Chrissie and I applied our teeshirt design skills to everything from promoting small businesses and one-time events, to our wildlife art, Kiwiana and nuclear free collections. We wholesaled to the likes of Wild Places and The Epicentre, Christchurch’s two ecostores, and to Greenpeace and the Maruia Society. Our market developed to include DoC visitor centres and similar conservation themed retail outlets in National Parks and the prestigious Te Papa store in Wellington. As our business and reputation grew we were commissioned by tourist attractions like the International Antarctic Centre, Orana Park and certain Doc conservancies to design and produce custom ranges of adult and children’s shirts.

This delightful collection is from our SurfaceActive Art-to-Wear range 1996–2000.

In terms of our T-shirt design itself, it evolved from straightforward application of a symbol or logo, screenprinted on the kitchen table in our flat in 1986, sometimes hand painted to finish, to approaches that treat the shirt as a canvas, involving printing the garments as piecework prior to being stitched up by local seamstresses. Whereas our early designs simply applied graphics to the front of the shirt, our designs developed into appearing on the front and back, wrap around, and encircling the hems and sleeves. Treating the T-shirt we were printing on as the design of a piece of clothing in the round. We also developed from printing initially printing white and light coloured shirts to having our locally made pure cotton garments custom dyed in vivid dark hues in small batches prior to their speciality “dark shirt” printing.

Optimising the illustration workflow for easy printing and graphic quality

One of our specialities is one colour “puff printed” designs, the so called puff inks contract when cured and so draw up the fabric surface. This has a tremendous tactile and visual effect on single colour dark shirt prints such as the Tuatara and children’s Ocean and Forest floor designs.

I developed a variation of drawing wildlife art for reproduction from classic zoology methods using mixed media charcoal pencil with pen and ink on coquille board to achieve a crisp “line and tone” effect from one colour “line” images. I then emulated this technique using illustration software.

Credits

Design and art direction, auto printmakers: Design pARTners Chrissie Terpstra & Shaun Waugh
Illustrator: Shaun Waugh