This project is a playful recontextualization of common superstitions using the metaphor of a user’s manual focused on how to live a lucky life. Through an explorative process, the resulting book blends imagery from Ars Moriendi (The Art of Dying), an Ikea user’s manual, and illuminated manuscripts. Each of the main spreads uses as its title the Latin derivative of the main subject matter, as in ‘Avem’ translated as bird. Titles are set in Futura, the main typeface of Ikea, with accents used to simulate similar titles of their products.
The choice to use handwritten text is intended as juxtaposition to the sharp terminals of the san-serif headers and to give it an informal undertone. The illustrations are hand drawn extractions from "Ars Moriendi "and are iteratively warped to espouse the supernatural. In lieu of gold leaf, the book is leafed in copper to play off the religious basis of illuminated manuscripts and the shift, with the advent of the codex book (and metaphorically ‘knowledge’), from non-secular theocracy to democratic empowerment.
