Ode to a cover, by Plainspoke
This is my favourite surfing magazine cover. The now defunct Adrenalin surf skate and snow magazine managed to be and do what a hoard of pretenders want. To exude pleasure, evoke experience and provoke thought. Their manufactured offerings embodied sympathy with intelligence and style. The 020 issue Hawaii: Deconstructing Aloha epitomised the elegance and edge of their project. While a cursory glance from cover to cover would recommend the producers as design buffs, a closer reading reveals soulful philosophy and hardcore froth. If you are able to imagine reading a magazine like unto riding a wave. Then this issue is like a perfect day at your favourite spot with your best buddies accumulated through several lifetimes. For example one of the feature articles Ukulele Consciousness provides such a delicate and triumphant treatment of the subject (with photographs and text) that the appeal is suited to aficionado and neophyte in equal measure. It may sound like a ploy to boost the value of this now rare collector item on Ebay. Let’s face it I have been accused of worse. Please take it as a reverie on my favourite things.
by Plainspoke
Hey Bec,
If what’s inside is as good as the cover (and you) say, i’d snap it up on e-bay if it was there. But it’s not. Hold onto that one.
Where did you get that Bec. Awesome.
I only wish I could claim it as my own – I am, however, nowhere near that resourceful or interesting!
You need to ask Plainspoke, who emailed it to me from their own archive…
Hahaha we should do a version, but with a “Where’s Eddie?” game.
I love that cover. Nicely done. But anything marketed as Surf-Skate-Snow is a road to ruin.
Surf-Skate-Snow! Better than:
“Adrenaline Sports” Ugh.
Or “Extreme Sports” Ugh x 2
Or “Lifestyle Sports” Ugh x 3
I concur! I’d pick up a Surf-Skate-Snow magazine or film over any of those others.
I can’t decide if I think Adrenaline or Extreme Sports is worse though!!
great cover!
in concept,
reminds me of the LP cover from
the Firesign Theatre:
“Waiting for the Electrician..or Someone Like Him”
in their case..they were deconstructing the Euroinvasion of Nth America.
among other things.
great artists sometimes think alike.
i’m curious: who is the artist of this drawing? i want to know more.
credit where credit is due. will sweeney a london-based creative gets the kudos for the cover.
thanks bec
Oh my pleasure – anytime…
Now all questions about this can be redirected and I can stop artfully ignoring them.