Adelaide Fringe muscles up (all the way from Bulgaria!)

Adelaide Fringe has shown continued strong growth for yet another year, with at least 740 events registered to take part in the festival from Friday, February 18 to Sunday, March 13.

Adelaide Fringe’s 2011 poster created by 31-year-old Bulgarian designer Kamen Goranov is as strong as event registrations, featuring two wild characters made up of a collage of photography, stencil, paint and computer-generated imagery. Kamen’s prize includes a $1000 Flight Centre voucher.

“I’m so happy my poster will represent Adelaide Fringe,” Kamen said. “The inspiration for my design was to create an ironic, sarcastic and humorous image combining different elements, using mainly a collage technique. As Adelaide is situated on the coast I gave both characters some marine attributes, a ship tattoo for the king and octopus arms for the queen. My intention was to create some weird, strange icon but with some attributes, like the two crowns, that identify them as king and queen.”
Adelaide Fringe Director and Chief Executive Greg Clarke said like many Adelaide Fringe events, the two characters defy classification.

“Adelaide Fringe is about diversity and our alternative king and queen embody this,” Greg said. “Kamen’s entry was chosen as his characters capture the spirit of Adelaide Fringe – they are different, imaginative, diverse, to some strange, to others playful and out of this world.

“Adelaide Fringe has often received national and international entries, but this is the first year someone from overseas has won. Adelaide Fringe is a world-renowned arts festival that attracts artists and audiences from all over the globe, so we’re happy to welcome an international designer to the family of Adelaide Fringe poster competition winners.”

So, what do you think?