#JUSTBREATHE | Tee Design Contest

Enter our T-shirt design competition, taking as your cue our most precious resource: the air!

General Filter is pleased to announce the launch of #JustBreathe, a design competition to help raise public awareness of the importance of good air quality, with special reference to the indoor spaces where we spend much of our time.

The #JustBreathe (Respira!) competition invites us to reflect upon how “clean air” not only improves quality of life, but can also help save lives. For our mission is to help support the work of the Fondazione Rava N.P.H. Italia Onlus, which has recently installed an oxygen-generating system at the St. Damien Pediatric Hospital in Haiti, the initiative being known as “Un Respiro per Haiti” in Italian.

Organized in collaboration with Italy-based Teeser, the world’s first T-shirt e-commerce site and social network, whose aim is to communicate important messages via printed T-shirts, the #JustBreathe design competition is aimed at graphic designers and other creatives. The invitation is to take a deep breath, and provide an imaginative “take” on one of the key elements of our lives, but one which we often take for granted: the air.

Indeed, researchers at Harvard University have shown that good indoor air quality (IAQ) has a powerful effect on our general health and can improve our creative skills and boost our productivity two-fold.

The winning designs, along with those created by our five Celebrity Ambassadors, will be manufactured and will constitute a capsule collection that goes on sale on Teeser.it in October 2016.

Al proceeds go to the Fondazione Francesca Rava N.P.H. (Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos/Our Little Brothers and Sisters) Italia Onlus, to help maintain and enhance the oxygen-generating equipment in the Intensive Care Unit at St. Damien’s Pediatric Hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, which has helped save the lives of some 80,000 children, not least by providing clean air in the operating theaters.

The Ambassadors of this initiative are: Claudio Coccoluto, the internationally-renowned “house music” DJ; Filippo la Mantia, who is one of Italy’s leading celebrity-chefs; Andrea Lo Cicero, an Italian rugby international and well-known TV presenter; Claudia Potenza, the star of stage and screen, who was nominated as Best Supporting Actress for “Basilicata Coast to Coast” (2010) at the David di Donatello awards, and Paolo Stella, actor and web influencer.

The judging panel, whose task will be to chose the three best designs from the one hundred selected via the online vote, will be headed up by Stefano Guindani (head of the Agenzia Fotografica SGP, and an Ambassador for the Milan-based Fondazione Rava) while the members are Diamante D’Alessio (Editor, Io Donna magazine), Vinicio Marchioni (actor and director), Giovanni Polin (President and CEO, General Filter), and Mariavittoria Rava (President, Fondazione Francesca Rava N.P.H. Italia Onlus).

We hereby extend an invitation to all to participate in the #JustBreathe design competition, which will provide support for the Fondazione Rava’s “Un respiro per Haiti” initiative. Upload your designs between 9 May and 15 July, 2016 to www.justbreathecontest.com, where you can also see the other contestants’ work, and can vote for the ones you like best.

Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn for the latest news on this initiative, and on future developments.