New Zealand label thehinitiative has launched a street wear T-shirt range together with World Vision New Zealand, in support of the Children in Crisis program.

Li Ling Ng, director of thehinitiative (pronounced “The H Initiative”), says the T-shirts are to help raise awareness about global child poverty and for fashion consumers to buy great T-shirts while contributing towards a life-changing cause for children.

“You can Look Great in a T-shirt and, at the same time, Do Good by making a real difference in a child’s life”, says Li Ling. “For example, buying one of these T shirts could contribute towards a 2,000 litre water tank that provides water storage and access to safe drinking water for school children in Africa”.

The T-shirt range consists of the designs in men’s and women’s styles, with organic and fair trade cotton t-shirts offered as part of the range. Designs are based off the top three entries of the 2007 World Vision Art 4 Aid t-shirt design competition.

Art 4 Aid is a World Vision initiative raising awareness of global child poverty through art. Entrants were given themes to work from, designed to bring to mind images of poverty, war and peace, and children living in crisis situations in developing countries, such as those orphaned by HIV and AIDS.

The top design, Freedom Dove, was designed by Laura Cibilich, a 26-year-old graphic designer based in Auckland. Laura’s entry was chosen as the winning T-shirt design for its simplicity of design and message: “This design symbolises peace using a well-known symbol: the dove. It flies upward towards its freedom, leaving the pieces of war behind it. White ink printed on a black T-shirt symbolises the dove breaking out of the darkness of war.” The runners up designs were Jamie Wong’s My Heart and Olivier Perkins’ Peace Inside.

All three designs are available for purchase online via the website thehinitiative.co.nz, with nationwide and worldwide delivery. 25% of all online sales are given to World Vision.

T-shirts are also being stocked at fashion retail shops Rex Royale (Wellington) and Starfish (Wellington). Starfish was the Emerging Sustainable Business Leaders (SME) category winner of the 2007 NZI National Sustainable Business Awards.

ENDS

Contacts:

Li Ling Ng
Director, thehinitiative
021 313 880
liling at thehinitiative.co.nz
(High res celeb images available from Li Ling on request)

Catherine Healy
Press Officer, World Vision New Zealand
09 580 7747 / 021 545 638
catherine.healy at worldvision.org.nz

Woohoo! We've been featured on Kevin Robert's blog : )

thehinitiative is a fashion house that produces cool t-shirts in New Zealand; nothing startling about that. After all, New Zealand is now recognized as a distinctive influence in fashion. But thehinitiative has combined their passion for clothes with a passion for making the world a better place....

And the parts we really, really like : )

....This is totally in tune with where Saatchi & Saatchi are going with Saatchi S. We have to start grounding sustainability deep into the lives of people. To help them bring sustainability into their world rather than have the immense problems of the planet hung over their heads. We call this moving from Green thinking to Blue action – and you’re going to be hearing a lot more about it. thehinitiative is True Blue....

....Note: The secret behind their rather mysterious name is revealed on their blog. What’s the extra “H” stand for in thehiniative? Hope. I love it.

And Blue's already one of our favourite colours! But it's so true that we're more about Blue Action rather than just Green thinking...

BIG thanks to Kevin : ) We didn't ask to be featured, so this is great 3rd party endorsement! ; )

World Vision tees seen on Sarah Hughes (and supporting guitarist Ben) at her first official gig in March '08 : )

Thought it's fine time to profile all the awesome designers who have contributed to our ranges...so, here's the first one : )

We'd like to introduce Olivier Perkins of Spore* Design who has had three of his designs come to life as thehinitiative's t-shirts!

What have you been up to recently?

Fairly busy! Currently finishing my final year of a BVA graphic design degree whilst also running my freelance studio and doing a few design projects for various clients. One current client in particular is rather interesting- We're creating a new fashion range.....but for those of the 4 legged kind. Should be releasing this year, so looking forward to that!

How did you first get started in design?

Originally came from a background far removed from design as I trained and worked as a water sports instructor! In my travels though I found myself doing a few design jobs here and there for friends and employers, which brought me to the realisation that design was where my passion really lay. So I gave up the day job went back to study and focused on creating creations...and lived happily ever after!

How would you describe your style?

Eclectic, fun, with a twist of crazy?! I really enjoy the variety that design and illustration can offer, working on different projects for different clients allows you to explore new and alternative methods to realise the end result. I'm a great believer in trying to find the right look for the project at hand.

What inspires your work?

Anything and everything! Inspiration can really come from anywhere, from the project itself, from some random object found on the beach, from some rough doodles on a scrap of paper...you get the idea! Just always trying to keep your eyes, ears and mind open to what's around you.

Why get involved with thehinitiative?

It's great to be part of the initiative. It's so nice to be able to give something back in a way that everyone can enjoy and allows everyone to feel good about what they're doing, wearing, buying. So if you're reading this do your bit today, grab a T for yourself and someone else, you know you want to!

How did it feel to have your designs made into tees?

Having something in your hands that you've been a part of creating is a great feeling. Seeing the final end result of your design is always so much better than when it's on your doodle pad or computer screen. And its always good to add to the Tshirt collection of course!

Complete this sentence: And my favourite ice cream flavour ever is…

Mint, choc chip is grand! (but cookies n cream has to do when I can't find the minty goodness!)

Thanks Olivier! : )

We've just set up thehinitiative's online outlet store! Check it out for sale items of our earlier t-shirt ranges, t-shirt samples and seconds - we'll be adding things in bit by bit (there's only our two Braille tees there at the moment). Note that everything is in New Zealand dollars at the moment (we're thinking about changing to US dollars in the future), and only credit card payments are accepted at the outlet store and these are securely processed via Paypal.

To make life simpler, we've changed our delivery rates to flat rates rather than according to the number of items and so forth. The delivery FAQ now reads....

http://www.thehinitiative.co.nz/faqs/

Ok ok, I admit it - we sent them to him : )

The first time I was in contact with Kevin Roberts was way back in January 2002, when I'd just completed a Bachelor's in Information Systems, Commericial Law, and my favourite (yeah right!) Accounting and was looking at my career options: Advertising, Investment Banking, or working in the FMCG industry (in marketing or something). Yes, I know, all pretty UNrelated to my degree (is it obvious I was trying to avoid accounting like the plague?) but areas that really caught my interest as they were all go-go-go, exciting, interesting and challenging.

I discovered and was encouraged into the idea of informational interviewing after reading A Foot in the Door - it got me keen in cold-calling people in the different areas about the careers, etc. Kevin was on my list of interviewees about the Advertising industry.

One Lovemarks book/three finance jobs/a new business/6 years later and I thought I'd touch base with him about what I'm doing with thehinitiative. Might as well spread the word : )

Jennifer Santiago, an Emmy Award winning reporter and special projects producer for Miami's HDNews, randomly found thehinitiative via Google and was keen to help promote us (and New Zealand)! You wouldn't believe how stoked we were...and still are : )

She's hosting a new show for the Travel Channel and will be trying to get our Mental Health Foundation Speech Bubbles tees on screen. Filming's happening now for the new travel show...and we'll post photos up of her in them as soon as it's finished.

By now, everyone's probably heard about the crisis in Myanmar, especially with the noise about their government seemingly comfortable turning a blind eye to everything and not allowing a lot of foreign aid through.

But, we found out during a meeting with World Vision last Friday that World Vision has been able to get through! Phew!

According to World Vision, the agency's history of aid and development in the country means it is one of three international humanitarian organisations (including Unicef and JICA) invited by the government of Myanmar to respond.

"This means our staff have already been involved in getting clean water to those affected by Cyclone Nargis, and our international relief staff are working to get more aid distributed." says Lisa Cescon, World Vision CEO. (Source: World Vision website)

World Vision New Zealand is currently appealing for $1 million - click here to donate to World Vision or for updates on aid to Myanmar.

Finally! Somewhere for your used plastic CourierPost bags to go to rather than the rubbish bin (which then leads to the landfill) - CourierPost are recycling their courier bags : )

As part of our commitment to the environment, CourierPost is helping to minimise the impact of waste products. That’s why our Trackpak range is fully recyclable.

We encourage all of our customers, both big and small, to recycle your Trackpaks rather than throw them away.

BackTrack Your Trackpaks
1. If you’re a frequent user of our plastic Trackpaks, just ask your local CourierPost courier to provide you with one of our large (reusable) drawstring bags to store all your used Trackpaks. Your courier will collect them when calling into your premises.

2. Or you can drop your used Trackpaks into one of our specially marked recycling bags at any CourierPost branch.

What we do with the used packaging
CourierPost has partnered with leading New Zealand plastics recycling company, Astron Plastics, to recycle on our behalf.

Used Trackpaks are collected from all CourierPost branches nationwide and delivered to Astron Plastics recycling plants in Auckland and Christchurch.

Not only that, but the proceeds from the recycled plastic goes to CourierPost's sponsorship of Diabetes New Zealand. How nice is that!

(Source: http://www.courierpost.co.nz/recycle.htm)

So...we hope this means you can drop off your used bags at NZ Post offices nationwide since they are part of the CourierPost network : )