Daniel Kondo
Award-winning Brazilian author, illustrator and book designer
Daniel Kondo is an award-winning Brazilian author, illustrator and book designer whose work explores the book as a narrative object, where image, structure and rhythm shape the act of reading. Working across picturebooks, editorial design and visual storytelling, he creates books in which form and content are inseparable, using sequence, scale, silence, typography and materiality as narrative elements.
Rather than treating design as a layer applied to a finished text, Kondo conceives each book as a complete visual and physical experience. His practice brings together writing, illustration and graphic design to investigate how meaning emerges through the relationship between words, images, space and the turning of pages. This approach extends from children's literature to artists' books, editorial projects and interdisciplinary collaborations that connect literature, music and contemporary visual culture.
Over the past two decades, his books have been published by leading Brazilian publishers and have received national and international recognition. His work includes collaborations with artists such as Gilberto Gil, Djavan and Lulu Santos, and has been recognized by the Jabuti Prize, the Bologna Children's Book Fair, the Society of Illustrators in New York and American Illustration, among other awards, exhibitions and collections dedicated to illustration and book design.
His books have been translated, published and exhibited internationally, reflecting an ongoing interest in the book as a cultural object that moves across languages, disciplines and generations. Whether creating picturebooks, designing editorial collections or developing projects that bring together music, literature and the visual arts, Kondo seeks to expand the expressive possibilities of the book while preserving clarity, playfulness and emotional resonance.
Based in Punta del Este, Uruguay, he works internationally with publishers, cultural institutions, museums, educational organizations and authors, developing books and visual projects at the intersection of literature, design and contemporary visual culture.