Clarity or Mystery

When thinking of ways to represent a whole novel just by creating an instalment, my group and I found it very difficult to agree on an idea. We all acknowledged that there were far too many key elements, themes and objects that we felt were crucial. We were torn between incorporating objects known to represent Lord of the Flies and addressing lesser known objects as we felt that if we were to use obvious objects, our installation may appear too easy to read and therefore we were not giving our viewers enough credit. However, if we were to use lesser-known objects, there is also a possibility of us confusing some viewers as some viewers may not have any knowledge on Lord of the Flies prior to the exhibition and therefore, they may feel disconnected to instalment.

In Chip Kidd's talk on The art of first Impressions, he addressed how even though not enough information is presented - maybe only the necessary, if it was carried forward effective enough, it can be allruringly mysterious and therefore attract viewers to the instalment. Using clarity within work is sometimes effective as it is seen as blunt, honest and sincere. On the other hand, by incorporating mystery into our work, our work now demands to be decoded and when it is done right, people generally feel the need to decode it.

With this idea in mind, I then went on to find examples of how other artists may have addressed this idea and what worked or didn't work for them. The book cover below was a book cover idea by Sishirprithvi Bommakanti submitted last year to the Folio Society Award. Even though ultimately he did not win, I liked his book cover best. I really admire how Bommakanti seems to have perfectly balance clarity and mystery into the cover with well known characters partially shown providing sort of a suggestion of what goes on in the book.

This seemed to be quite a popular idea amongst illustrators as there are at least two more illustrators that created work surrounding this idea. These other bookcase submissions below were also very interesting to be as they used colours like white that stood out against darker colours causing the cover to look clearer and therefore held a stronger appearance to them.

#EDITORIAL