Ofrenda
Day of the Dead ofrenda, 2022
San Francisco Public Library
For Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) in 2022, we created an ofrenda, or altar, in the display cases at one of the entryways to the Main Library.
The ofrenda was an opportunity for staff members to memorialize departed loved ones and favorite authors by submitting photos and names, respectively, to the exhibition team. Meanwhile, library visitors who observe Dia de los Muertos got to see this important tradition reflected in a public space, and those who were not familiar with the holiday learned more about it.
I referenced images of ofrendas and items associated with Dia de los Muertos to create a color palette and visual language, inspired by sugar skulls (calaveras), marigolds (cempasúchiles) and papel picado—in particular, a design created for SFPL by a local artisan in a previous year.
The Spanish-language librarian who was leading the content side of the project gave me feedback on this reference document, providing helpful additional context. She showed me images by the woodcut artist José Guadalupe Posada, which led me to select fonts that were digitized versions of wood type.
SFPL’s Spanish-language librarian also explained her vision of three traditional tiers in three colors (blue, green and purple) representing heaven, earth, and the underworld.
The text of the exhibit was bilingual (Spanish and English). The text panels, with a green background representing the “earth” layer of the ofrenda, included a decorative border inspired by SFPL’s signature papel picado.
The Library’s on-staff illustrator created custom portraits of deceased authors, which I put into duo-tones within the palette of the exhibit. More authors’ names graced the spines of books with custom-printed dust jackets.
As we installed the ofrenda before the Library opened to the public one morning, we were able to show our arriving coworkers the prints of their family photos for the first time. The shared ofrenda was a space to bring the Library community together, where images of our loved ones sat side by side, along with the names and images of authors whose ideas and stories we still talk about today.
