Celebrating Aotearoa New Zealand: My Kiwi Pride Collection
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| 100% Kiwi — typography design on t-shirt |
My mind constantly wanders back to my homeland of New Zealand, especially after a recent trip there with four of my friends from the United States. We spent time in Auckland (including a day trip to Waiheke Island), then flew south to Christchurch and Akaroa, down to Tekapo with its unbelievable dark skies, and on to Queenstown for the last stretch. Ten days is not enough for the South Island, or for New Zealand generally, but it left the same impression it always does: a deepened appreciation for Aotearoa, its unique culture, and its magnificent landscape. My friends all fell for New Zealand and wanted to buy as many souveniers as they could fit in their bags to wear and display once they returned Stateside. Not to mention downing as many glasses of sauvignon blanc, cups of "flat whites", and Afghan biscuits!
While I am already counting down the days until my next visit "way down under," I needed a creative outlet to express that connection right now. Between tending to the native Arthropodium cirratum (renga renga lily) and Pseudopanax ferox (fierce lancewood) flourishing in my California garden, I sat down to design something to help others express their Kiwi pride too.
A Tribute to Aotearoa
My Kiwiana collection on Redbubble is a small, growing set of designs celebrating New Zealand — its icons, its inside jokes, its beloved everyday things. Some are typographic and minimal; others are illustrated and playful. Every one of them is a piece of home. Here are four of my favourites from the collection so far.
100% Kiwi
The one that started the collection. A bold, minimalist typography design that simply says what it says. "Kiwi" — the informal but universally understood term for a New Zealander — is worn without apology or explanation. This design works for anyone who identifies as a Kiwi, whether they're at home in Aotearoa, an expat missing the smell of the bush after rain, or someone who came for a fortnight and left a piece of their heart wandering the sights of the country. It sits beautifully on a crisp white tee, a black hoodie, a travel tote, or as a sticker on the water bottle you'd take on the Tongariro Crossing.
Flat White and Chocolate Fish
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| Flat White and Chocolate Fish — two pieces of Kiwiana in one design |
This one packs two pieces of Kiwiana into a single design. The flat white — the espresso-and-steamed-milk coffee widely credited to Wellington or Sydney depending on who you ask, but which New Zealanders will defend as ours until the last barista — sits proudly in a teal cup with a fern-leaf latte art design. Beside it on the saucer, a classic New Zealand favourite, the chocolate fish, with its telltale pink marshmallow filling showing at the tail.
Below the whole scene runs the phrase every Kiwi grew up hearing: "Give that kid a chocolate fish!" — the informal award for a job well done, a good idea, or an answer that hit the mark in class. If you know, you know. This piece is for the Kiwi expat who misses proper coffee, the returning traveller who fell in love with the flat white while they were down there, and anyone who understands that the chocolate fish is a genuine unit of praise.
Flat White and Chocolate Fish on Redbubble
Pukeko
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| Pukeko — New Zealand's purple swamphen |
The pukeko (Porphyrio melanotus) is one of New Zealand's most instantly recognisable native birds — a purple swamphen with deep blue-purple plumage, a bright red bill and frontal shield, and long red legs made for wading. You'll see them all over the North Island's wetlands, roadside ditches, and grassy paddocks, striding around with the slightly comic confidence of a bird that knows it belongs. Unfortunately, if you're driving, you'll see just as many squashed on New Zealand country roads and highways as they love to forage by the roadsides looking for insects that have been stunned or killed by passing cars.
Pukeko have earned a warm place in Kiwi affection — as characters on stamps, in children's books, and on countless bits of Kiwiana merchandise. My design leans into the stylised graphic tradition rather than the naturalistic one, treating the pukeko as an icon rather than a study.
Buzzy Bee (with Mary Lou)
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| Buzzy Bee with Mary Lou — a tribute to two of New Zealand's most iconic wooden toys |
The Buzzy Bee is possibly the most iconic single object in the Kiwiana canon. A wooden pull-along toy with rotating wings that make a satisfying clacking sound as they turn, it was first produced in Auckland in the late 1930s by Maurice Schlesinger, and continued by Hec Ramsey and his brother John from about 1948. It has been in one factory or another ever since. Almost every New Zealander of a certain age had one, or watched a younger sibling drag one across the kitchen floor.
The Buzzy Bee got its international moment when Prince William, then not quite two, was photographed playing with one on the lawn of Government House during the 1983 royal visit — an image that has been part of Buzzy Bee's biography ever since. Almost as beloved is Buzzy's sister toy, the Mary Lou doll, made by the same factory in the same tradition and rarely mentioned without her big brother. My design pairs them together, with a stylized version of Mary Lou riding cheerfully on Buzzy's back, because they belong together in memory as they did in the toy chest.
More from the Kiwiana Collection
The four pieces above are just part of what's in the collection. I've also done a series of three kiwi bird designs featuring the koru pattern, a silver fern design, and — from further back — a tribute to the Sure to Rise Edmonds Cookbook that lived on my mother's kitchen shelf all through my childhood. Between them, they cover a decent stretch of the Kiwiana canon.
Whether you're a proud local, an expat missing home, or a traveller who left a piece of your heart wandering the sights of New Zealand, I hope you find something in the collection that resonates with you.
Explore the Full Kiwiana Collection
You can find all my work at my Redbubble shop, KornKob Art — or search Redbubble for kornkobart (one word).
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