Hawke's Bay design shop creates free downloadable colouring in story book

Hannah McAlister downloaded the book for her four year old daughter Winter-Rose Boyce. Photo / Supplied

A Hawke's Bay design company has an innovative solution for those who can't get to stationery shops during a pandemic.

The team at Your Decal Shop have created a free downloadable colouring-in story book called 'Tui Stays Home' to keep children entertained.

Two weeks ago, the team began discussing what they could create that wouldn't require them to physically be at the studio when the idea came about.

"Our self-written brief was to create a form of distraction for children while educating them about the way of life we are currently living," Your Decal Shop director Antony Clark said.

The book tells the story of Tui who becomes a hero by staying home, staying in touch with his fellow native bird family over social media, washing his wings and being kind to others.

Each page features an image to colour in.

Your Decal Shop had previously made colouring-in story books for Mid Central Hospital children's ward and Middlemore MRI suite and felt making a Kiwiana-themed book for children was a good idea in the current level 4 Covid-19 situation.

The team has been working from home for two weeks and formulated the story and pages over Skype then each took different parts of the story to create the content.

"Once complete, we printed it out and gave it to our kids for the final inspection.

"It was about 30 minutes of drawing and peace for us. A complete success to say the least," Clark said.

Since uploading the downloadable book to their website three days ago there have been 22,500 downloads.

"We are stoked to be able to give something to our community, even if it is as small as story book," he said.

Clark said the feedback has been "really wonderful".

"It has been such a super feel good project," he said.

The book is free and can be downloaded to be printed at home on the Your Decal Shop website www.yourdecalshop.co.nz/tui-stays-home.