You don't have to give up the location of the Rebel base to some planet-obliterating Grand Moff in order to save the Earth -- just buy a green Star Wars t-shirt!
Starting today, Zazzle is releasing a series of six "green" Star Wars tees -- well, not literally green, but you know what we mean -- which will help re-populate the greenhouse gas-eating tree population and help save our planet!
Zazzle's "Tree-Shirt ReLeaf" campaign, which hopes to plant 100,000 trees with money earned from the sale of their Green Day t-shirts, commences on April 16, runs through Earth Day, April 22, and concludes on Arbor Day, April 24, 2009. Shoppers should use code "PLANTATREE09" for the purchase of any apparel item so that a tree is planted by American Forests.
We asked Zazzle's co-founder, Jeff Beaver, about the Star Wars Earth Day t-shirts:
Star Wars fans are a progressive lot, so "green" Star Wars-wear seems like a perfect fit. What inspired the series?
One of the big themes in the Star Wars movies is the use of large-scale environments. For example, desert in A New Hope, snow and swamp in Empire, and forest in Jedi. So it seemed like a natural fit. Once we started throwing around ideas and quotes from the films, going in that direction, it all came together pretty quickly. I'm sure we didn't cover every possible angle, so if anyone has any good ideas that they don't see posted, they're always welcome to send them in or tweet them to @Zazzle and we'll get the best ones made (community@zazzle.com).
We also asked Jeff about a stunning new series of retro WPA-inspired (Works Progress Administration) travel posters with a Star Wars theme that Zazzle is releasing:
Regarding the Star Wars WPA-inspired posters -- can you speak to the unique style of these posters and what influenced them? Are they all slightly altered from the original WPA posters? Coruscant of course is original for obvious reasons!
Doing a mashup with the WPA posters was pretty much a no-brainer, since it goes great with the overall theme of conservation, and a lot of people are familiar with the content already. So it's fun because the additions to the actual art are pretty subtle. Non-fans might not notice, but people that are really into the films will get the references and enjoy it.
Can we expect any more of these travel posters, perhaps from Dagobah, Yavin, Kamino?
Absolutely. We think it would be fun to do a whole series of Clone Wars-era recruitment and military posters, too. We're pretty huge Star Wars fans over here, and because of the way Zazzle works, we have a lot of freedom to whip up the kind of stuff that you won't run across in a regular store.
Check out Zazzle's Star Wars Earth Day tees here and the new retro-inspired travel posters at StarWarsShop here (click "Custom Fan Art" and then "Vintage Posters" -- Coruscant version coming soon!).
