09 June 2025
A Key Visual Illustration; and a glimpse into Africa
Online gaming and gaming communities have been a connective tissue that branches the globe, bringing together people from many different backgrounds, histories, and beliefs. The illustration made by a team of staff and students from the Academy of Digital Arts in collaboration with PUBG Mobile South Africa visualises that gathering.
The Academy of Digital Arts hosted a stunning collaboration with PUBG Mobile SA in 2025, where artists from their PDP competitions were invited to host a workshop and paint an epic mural at our campus.
This early collaboration was the platform for our student work being recognised by the gaming giant, who went on to commission ADA students Chiedza Davies, Marisa Schulz and Pablo Elliott to illustrate a key visual celebrating Africa. The project was overseen by ADA lecturer, Roelien van Jaarsveld, and was a roaring success all round.
A common occurrence for African online gamers are infamous questions like: “Do you have lions walking around in your streets?” or “do you have electricity?”. In the true spirit of African humour, these questions are met with responses like “yes, I ride my pet lion to school” or “I use a giraffe’s neck to get a signal that connects me to the game servers” or "yes... we have electricity when Eskom allows it.”
As funny as these questions are to those fortunate enough to have electricity and not lions – it echoes ‘The Danger of a Single Story’, a fantastic TED talk hosted by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in 2009. Adichie grew up in Nigeria; she speaks about how, when she moved to an American university, her roommate was surprised that she could speak English, use a stove and that she listened to Mariah Carey instead of “tribal music”. Her roommate had a single story of what it meant to be African.
Africa does not just have a single story. The story that is represented in the media – that of beautiful landscapes, wild animals, and poor people fighting in wars and waiting for a foreigner to donate to an Instagram add is not our only truth. This is well summarised by the impactful quote from the trailer of the game ‘Relooted’ by Joburg-based studio Nyamkop.
“Youdon’t get to see Africa in the future very often.It’s almost like Africa is not allowed to dream and be hopeful of what the future looks like ”
So, when we were approached by the commissions team of PUBG Mobile Africa to design a key visual that represents Africa – it was immediately apparent to us the challenge that lay ahead. Several major things needed to be considered, but the main one was that Africa is a continent with 54 countries, home to upwards of three thousand distinctly different cultures, each with their own unique languages and people. A single illustration cannot tell all these stories. And what we didn’t want to do was put all these stories into a blender and serve the ‘Africa soup’ single story that international media has come to expect. Instead, we limited it down and decided to tell a few specific stories that were close to the hearts of the artists on the design team.
The full story of this illustration can be read here: