Mirror-reading Vanitas

This is a brochure that presents the work Vanitas in the XII Florence Art Biennale, 2019, Italy. The biennale marked the fifth centenary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death. On this occasion, this brochure design pays attention to the ‘mirror writing’ calligraphy of Da Vinci to create a sort of ‘mirror reading’ as a design strategy that will capture the reader’s attention. ‘Mirror writing’ is a writing technique Da Vinci used to write commentaries on his artworks. The writing runs from right to left, and with the individual letters also reversed. ‘Mirror-reading’ is reading the text with a mirror.

Danne Ojeda is Associate Professor in the School of Art, Design, and Media, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Danné’ s work engages contemporary communication design, art practice, and theory. In 2003, she founded d-file studio in Amsterdam, —a platform for concept and project development in the areas of visual art, design and theory—, from which she has mainly worked for and collaborated with cultural institutions that include the Singapore Art Museum (SAM), the Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, the National Institute of Fine Arts, Mexico, among others.

Her design works have been recognized with the Chicago Athenaeum—Good Design Awards (US), IDA Design Awards (US), How International Design Awards (US), Red Dot Design Award: Communication Design (DE), IF International Forum Design Award (DE), A’ (A-PRIME) Design Award (IT), the Creative Review Annual Awards (UK), Art Books Wanted International Award (CZ, FR), among others. Her complete publication and exhibition design oeuvre commissioned by the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) was awarded Asia’s Top Designers Award, Singapore Design Award 2014.