Jun Arita is delighted at his quick success. Photo / Paul Estcourt
Jun Arita arrived in New Zealand only last month, but he has already made his mark.
The 24-year-old, from Osaka in Japan, beat 399 other people in a competition to design a T-shirt for the 2008 Glassons Breast Cancer Research Trust collection.
And he has the iconic Buzzy
Bee to thank for the inspiration for his design.
The idea for the T-shirt design came to Mr Arita, who is staying with friends in Whangaparaoa, following a visit to the Honey Centre in Puhoi.
"There were lots of Buzzy Bees there ... I thought they were great and they made me so happy that I wanted to include them in my design. Everybody here knows this character."
He entered the competition at Fashion Week and hopes his design will please people and raise money for the cause.
"I want people to look at it and feel happy ... I want to share happiness through my art."
His T-shirt will be sold next year alongside other designs created for the collection by some of New Zealand's top fashion talents, including Karen Walker, Kate Sylvester and Trelise Cooper.
It is the first time the competition has been open to members of the general public and Mr Arita, who worked part-time as a graphic designer in his homeland, couldn't be happier.
"I still can't believe it ... I was so surprised when I found out I'd won. It's great."
His brightly-coloured design took about two hours to draw and incorporates Kiwi imagery such as the iconic Buzzy Bee and Kiwifruit with Japanese-style cartoon characters. The design is also dotted with a mixture of English and Japanese words.
The Glassons Breast Cancer Research Trust T-shirt campaign has been running for five years and has raised $2.8 million.
Mr Arita is in New Zealand for one year on a working holiday visa and recalled some advice his mother gave him before leaving Japan. "My mother said, 'Do art in New Zealand. I pray, I pray'," he said.
His winning design was judged by previous campaign designers including Dan Buckley from Huffer, Cybele Wiren from Cybele, and Elizabeth Shand from Ruby.
