Celebrating Thirty Years: Designing the Anniversary cover

This month The Adelaide Review turns 30 and to celebrate we enlisted street artist Ankles to design a special anniversary cover for us. He explains his design for the March 2014 edition of The Adelaide Review. Can you explain how you created the piece? The cover illustration was designed to celebrate 30 years of The Adelaide Review by reflecting on our city of Adelaide and the things we know and love. It was a fun but challenging opportunity to capture my own perspective of the city, and to create something that others could connect with. In general I find we struggle to identify ourselves as Australians, and especially Adelaideans, as we’ve seen in with the recent attempts to rebrand and market South Australia. My reaction to this was to use a bold, assertive style to create a powerful and confident tone. With the icons, what side of Adelaide were you trying to show and what were you trying to capture through them? Taking the format of a tattoo flash sheet, I painted this dense collection of images that spotlight some of Adelaide’s overlooked and less obvious features. In avoiding all the typical tourist attractions I wanted to represent as many recognisable, but often forgotten, icons of Adelaide. I picked the details from the architecture, design, history and culture of Adelaide that locals with a sharp eye and keen wits might be able to recognise. What do you want people to take away from it? I hope people find the humour and aesthetic of the piece that it becomes engaging to study and discover all the hidden and less obvious references embedded throughout. You were recently part of the Plan B Diary project for New Internationalist. Can you tell us a bit about the project and the artists involved? Every year my partner and myself design and curate the New Internationalist yearly planner and have the opportunity to fill the pages with the art, photography and quotes that inspire us, and hopefully inspire our readers. We’re very excited about the upcoming 2015 issue, where we have selected one contemporary artist from 50 different cities across the globe to feature their work and talk about how their city informs their art making. What other projects are you currently working on or have coming up? I’m currently wrapping up my ongoing work and packing my bags to relocate to North America this May. Adelaide has been an amazing place to live and connect with a great crew of likeminded people, and I can’t imagine ever forgetting my hometown roots. The Adelaide Review would like to thank Ankles for designing the cover and Jonathan van der Knaap for the initial ideas, as well as Andre Castellucci for the shoot. ohankles.com