Youth choose funky T-shirt

Samara Korewha, front, a student at the Whangarei Design School, is the winner of the Youth Week T-shirt competition, with, from left, Fashion and Textile Design tutor Malia-ana Flavell-Turketo, Hot Printz' Brett Sands and Briarley Birch from Te Ora Hou's The Pulse. Photo / John Stone

A funky cartoon-style logo has earned a Whangarei designer a place on the front of hundreds of T-shirts promoting Youth Week after she won a design competition.

The design by 16-year-old Samara Korewha, a student at the Whangarei Design School, was chosen, after a public vote, to be on the front of 500 T-shirts sold in Whangarei.

Youth Week is an annual international event - it finishes on Sunday - and this year's theme is all about giving. It's also about celebrating what all the people who work with young people bring to support young people.

The Pulse crew display the winning youth week T-shirt. Photo / John Stone

Te Ora Hou's youth centre The Pulse organised this year's T-shirt design competition and Briarley Birch, support and development officer for Te Ora Hou, said that for the past seven years, the body had organised the competition and invited young designers to submit a proposal.

Samara's design was chosen from the final two after a vote involving youth and those working with them.

Ms Birch said more than 400 votes were cast and Samara's design came out on top.

She was then teamed up with Hot Printz' senior designer Brett Sands and her design was put onto a T-shirt.

The 500 T-shirt run has already sold out.

"We normally sell 300 to 400, so that's a record number sold and we could have sold many more," she said.

Ms Birch said Samara's design was a "quite funky" cartoon style that appealed to youth.

She said the aim of the competition was to get youth working with a top designer to make their idea become a reality.

"It's a wonderful process that puts a young, upcoming artist in with a top designer, and the result is amazing."