Each year, the artwork for Dirty Hole Designs’ Mental Health in Mining Campaign carries a colourful tribute to a mate lost to suicide, along with hopes of sparking potentially life-saving conversations on site.

This is the seventh year the mining-focused Dirty Hole Designs has run the campaign, adding custom designs to a range of merchandise and donating 100 per cent of the proceeds to Black Dog Institute.

“Each year we do some artwork with a mining-related theme, and we always put a little bit of orange in it,” Dirty Hole Designs founder Steve Poznik said.

“I started the campaign in honour of a friend of mine who we just referred to as Hound Dog, who committed suicide on the mine site that I was working on – just a few hours after I actually spoke with him.

“He was a ginger fella, a redhead. So that’s my little Easter egg every year. Always make sure there’s a bit of orange in the designs.

“When we first did the campaigns, we focused on men’s mental health, and then we just broadened it out to mental health in mining and tried to keep it the same sort of thing with those illustrations. This year we went with a male and a female (in the artwork).”

Raising funds is something of a byproduct of the campaign – with the main aim being to spark conversations around mental health.

“We know we get success from that because our inboxes fill up after the campaigns from people who reach out and say how they saw someone wearing the T-shirt on a mine site, and they felt comfortable speaking to those people about things that were happening in their lives,” Mr Poznik said.

In the case of his friend ‘Hound Dog’ at Prominent Hill, he said people close to him had no idea he was depressed around the time of his death, let alone suicidal.

“I spoke with him hours before and we were talking about what we were going to do in a couple of weeks – to build a pizza oven at his house,” Mr Poznik said.

“It was one of those things where I thought to myself, if we can find a way to get people to talk about this sort of stuff, and I’ve got the avenue to do it, I need to do that.”

Mr Poznik said the merchandise orders were rolling in this year, on track to hit 800 prints at this stage, and direct donations from sponsors had already raised $16,000 for Black Dog Institute.

“I think we’re on track for probably close to $30,000 as a donation by the end of it,” he said.

He said just one online request for backing saw 53 companies jump on board with sponsorship – which includes raffle prizes on offer for those purchasing merchandise.

Merchandise for the 2024 Mental Health Campaign can be ordered here –https://dirtyholedesigns.com.au/collections/fundraiser. Orders close September 3.