Ambiguity

Recently I had the pleasure of hosting The Breakfast Club at Strategy Creative. The event is an opportunity to share ideas, techniques or innovations in the field of design. I chose to speak about ambiguity. I led with a quote from the professor, Les Lancaster. He said that ‘A sense of mystery is intrinsic to the human mind, It’s intrinsic for us to seek answers. It’s our evolutionary heritage, moving us forward by motivating us to find out more and use our imagination.’ This idea that holding something back, in order to let your audience become co-creators of a message, is so compelling to me. To illustrate my point, I played the final clip from the TV series Sopranos. The ending of this show achieved cult status specifically because the writers chose not to spell everything out. For more on the power of omission, check out Joe Fasslers article, ‘The Fine Art of Ambiguous Writing’ 
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/02/the-power-of-omission/385919/.