ELIZABETH & MARY: ROYAL COUSINS, RIVAL QUEENS

Client: British Library

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October 2022-May 2023

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Graphic Design: studio HB  

Exhibition Design: Hara Clark

AV: Clay

Lighting: DHA

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Elizabeth and Mary: Royal Cousins, Rival Queens exhibition at the British Library show how these women never met but their fates were intertwined. From their shared beginnings, facing the challenges of ruling in a mans world, the tension escalates as handwritten letters between the Queens show how paranoia turned sisterly affection into suspicion 

 

Hara Clark designed the spaces creating multiple halls, arcades and corridors. A deliberately maze like route highlighting the double height gallery with gauze wrapped frames featuring our environmental graphics. We used grainy black and white images of the imposing locations such as Holyrood and Durham Cathedral where the Queens wrote their letters-each coloured red or blue, hinting at which Queen they represented. 

 

The palette was restricted to red, blue and black and we added a distressed silver paint effect on the section panels, grazed coloured lighting from below to give clarity where new chapters began. Labels were printed on a matt white GF Smith Colorplan with debossed silver foiled blocks mirroring groupings in cases.  

 

We worked closely with Clay to overlay projections and graphics animating the flames in the printed torch along the coastline for Elizabeths Tilbury to defeat of the Spanish Armada.