Doing all the photo-clues for the Ubercross G afforded me some time to think about how they worked, and what it would be like if puzzles used them more widely. I’m far from the only person to try such clues: others have experimented with them since at least the 1980s.
And while I do find it a promising area to explore, there are some problems to address. One is that certain words can’t be summed up in a tiny image. Another is that certain words can only be summed up in one tiny image.
This was my clue for MSN, but if you asked me to come up with a second one, I’d be like, “Yeah, uh, I’ll get back to you.” There’s a less familiar version of MSN’s logo on Wikipedia…
And a few screenshots of the old, no-longer-in-use MSN Messenger…
But the non-butterfly-related images are rarely specific enough to be good clues. And once you’ve identified the MSN butterfly once, it’s not super interesting to do it again a second, third, and fourth time.
That’s not so much a problem for the Ubercross G, but it would be a problem for any theoretical “picture clues marketplace.” Crossword solvers complain a lot as it is about certain words showing up again and again in the grids they solve. But at least a mainstay like OREO has lots of different ways to clue it using words: “Snack with Red Velvet and Key Lime Pie varieties,” “Brand formerly advertised as ‘The Original Twister,’” “Black pie crust component.” How many truly different picture clues could it support, though? Here’s what I tried…
And here’s a few others, of varying difficulty:
After this, most of my ideas would start to get repetitive (more packaging clippings, showing the insane variety of Oreo flavors?) or a bit obscure.
Photo-crosswords, if they become a more regular thing, will have to figure out a sustainable strategy around this issue. Maybe OREO and other common crossword fill would just not be pictured that often, reserving the privilege of graphic clues for more unusual entries in the grid—the “marquee items,” as some solvers call them.
At any rate, these problems shouldn’t be too discouraging. On the other end of things, to my mind, are the clues that revolve around artists and visual styles. The artist ERTE is familiar to a lot of crossword-solvers, mostly because his name is made of very useful letters, but he’s considered kind of a perfunctory, dull entry. A photo clue, however, can show off his style…
Even if you need a couple of crossings to get it, that clue’s going to spark more joy than the verbal “The Father of Art Deco” or “Designer of over 240 Harper's Bazaar covers.” And there are many, many Erté designs to sample. Some deposits are richer than others, but there’s a lot of gold in these hills.