Packaging design for Xochi Prebiotic Agave Soda made with 100% natural ingredients, respecting the traditions surrounding aguamiel.

The concept aims to capture the essence of Mexican cultural elements and create a brand identity that pays homage to its vibrant heritage from a contemporary point of view. We drew inspiration from the streets, using a wide range of references such as local signage, festive traditional costumes, decorations, flowers, and everyday graphic expressions.

We wanted the cans to feel like a celebration of Mexican culture from a pop perspective, where colors are vibrant and typography is bold, oversized, and playful.

The Mexican Folk Dances album was released in 1966 by Bowmar Records and features music for various regional dances from Mexico, performed by various artists. It includes a gatefold cover with step instructions and was used in some schools.

[More info on Discogs]

Spanning 304 pages, Casa Mexicana offers an in-depth look at contemporary residential architecture in Mexico, featuring 26 remarkable houses and over 320 photographs by Edmund Sumner. The texts, written by Jonathan Bell, accompany projects by leading figures such as Fernanda Canales, Ludwig Godefroy, Pedro Reyes & Carla Fernández, and Tadao Ando.

The book was designed by Tim George, an independent graphic designer and photographer based in East London. His design for Casa Mexicana strikes a delicate balance between graphic precision and expressive warmth. Designed with great care and joy, the book balances graphic precision with a warm, expressive tone. The typography combines Bonto by Blaze Type with Aperçu from Colophon Foundry, resulting in a layout that feels both elegant and approachable. A special mention goes to Bonto’s question mark – a favourite glyph that gets to shine in the foreword titled “What makes a house Mexican?” by Fernanda Canales.

The physical design of the book is equally thoughtful: quarter-bound with a pink uncoated spine, yellow foil-blocked type, and a spot UV varnish on the cover. Among the featured projects is Casa 720, designed by Fernanda Canales and beautifully photographed by Edmund Sumner.

Dead End by Nicola Moscelli (curated by Steve Bisson, with graphic design by Roberto Vito D'Amico, and published by Penisola Edizioni in collaboration with Antiga Edizioni) is a visual documentary book exploring the US-Mexico border.

Conceived as a dossier, the book catalogues black-and-white panoramic format hyper-surveillance imagery from Google Street View alongside vintage postcards and old prints, confronting border issues across space and time through the recurring motif of the dead end—both physical and metaphorical. The visual content is enriched with quotes from ordinary people and historical figures, along with excerpts from government documents, interviews, social media, poetry fragments, and song lyrics.

The author’s textual essays provide additional depth to the research. Dead End further includes a foreword titled “How to Transcend the Distance” by Maceo Montoya (artist, writer, professor of Chicana/o Studies at UC Davis, and editor of Huizache magazine), an interview with Miriam Ticktin (professor of Anthropology at CUNY Graduate Center), and an afterword, “Who Draws the Boundaries?”, by Steve Bisson.

The book spans 360 pages in 200 mm × 297 mm format. It is produced with offset printing and features a soft cover with flaps (Fedrigoni Materica Clay 250g/m² paper). The binding is a Swiss brochure style with an exposed spine, adding a distinctive tactile and visual element to the publication.

The typeface Exposure—designed by Federico Parra-Barrios and distributed by 205TF—has been used for the textual essays. The open-source font IBM Plex Mono is employed for labelling the dossier content.

The book is composed of four distinct sections. A Mexican border section and a US border section, both printed on Fedrigoni Arena Rough White 90g/m², are enclosed by the cover flaps. Positioned between them are the colophon, printed on Favini Burano Giallo Zolfo, and a section on the evolution of the border, printed on Fedrigoni Symbol Freelife Satin Premium White 130. Additionally, a cartographic map is included to help navigate the book’s content.

Arriba Huentitán is an album by Mexican singer Vicente Fernández (1940–2021) that features a variety of ranchera songs.

[More info on Discogs]

Conceived initially during a conference on Mexican housing held in Rice University, Nueva Vivienda compiles contemporary architectural projects in Mexico, and essays and conversations about the recent history of Mexican housing.

The aim of this book design is to reflect on one hand, the open conversation in which it was born. A “roman” serif font typed in loose compositions evokes a transcription text, an ongoing conversation. And on the other hand, the problem of modernity and local identity materialised in basic geometric forms with earthy colors. A small circle, a pentagon, and a big rectangle, color symbolises the three housing scales addressed in the book; single family house, infill–development and High-rise buildings.

All these architectural typologies and the discussion around them compiled in Nueva Vivienda, propose new ideas into the practice of architecture, the politics of housing and the academic territory.

The book was edited by Jesús Vassallo and Sebastián López Cardozo and published by Park Books and Architecture at Rice.

From Bullock Museum’s website:

Hilos de Tradición: Dresses of Mexico is a collaborative exhibition with the Brownsville Historical Association that presents Mexican textiles as living traditions with roots that can be traced back thousands of years to the earliest peoples in Mesoamerica. The tools, patterns, materials, and techniques of crafting these textiles have evolved over the centuries. European influences and modernization have contributed to these changes. But the common thread in all of the textiles is the link they represent between Mexico’s past and present.

An album of Mexican folk songs, recorded by actor, composer, and singer Miguel Aceves Mejía (1915–2006), “the King of the falsetto”, and released by RCA Victor Records in 1955. The illustration is by Jim Flora.

[More info on Discogs]

Source: archive.org Aeroméxico. License: All Rights Reserved.

An Aeroméxico DC-10-30 as shown on a postcard from 1975

Founded in 1934, Aerovías de México is the flag carrier of Mexico. In February 1972, the airline shortened its name to Aeroméxico and introduced a new color scheme – orange and black – as well as a new logo.

This logo is custom drawn, but clearly based on a typeface that originated as Davison Psyche. Drawn by Dave Davison for Photo-Lettering, it features blocky caps with punched-out oval counters and flat tops and bottoms. The bold wide letterforms are additionally warped to feature concave lefts and convex rights. Psyche was first shown in the Psychedelitypes booklet from 1968. Shortly after, Mecanorma produced a close copy for dry transfer lettering named Contest.

Composite: Florian Hardwig. License: All Rights Reserved.

The Aeroméxico logo (middle, from a 1975 print ad) compared to Davison Psyche (top, as shown in PLINC’s Psychedelitypes, 1968, scan courtesy of Alex Jay) and Mecanorma Contest (bottom, digital version by ITF)

The unknown logo designer modified all letterforms to various extents – for example, the bite out of the top of M isn’t as huge – but kept other characteristic details like the oblique counters. The O was made convex on both sides, which kind of works between R and M, but less so for the second one following C. The execution may leave something to be desired. Still, I find it rad that a national airline went with such a spacy lettering style. Only in the 1970s!

The wordmark is used together with the Eagle Knight emblem. Inspired by the ancient culture of Mexico, it is “a symbol of courage, leadership, and fearlessness”. [Aeroméxico] See more images on Vintage Airliners.

In 1981, the logo was replaced by a new one which, according to Sandy Campbell, was designed by Raúl Pérez-Duarte Viesca. LoGoLOOK has an overview of the evolution of the Aeroméxico logo.

Happy Cinco de Mayo to those who celebrate!

Source: www.ebay.com thejumpingfrog. License: All Rights Reserved.

Ticket wrapper

Source: www.ebay.com thejumpingfrog. License: All Rights Reserved.

Ticket wrapper. The subline “The Airline of Mexico” is in Eurostile Extended, the text at the top in Helvetica.

Source: www.ebay.com belinda1977. License: All Rights Reserved.

Airsickness bag

Source: www.ebay.com caraninfo. License: All Rights Reserved.

Boarding pass. The typeface used for the text is News Gothic.

Source: Aeromexico card game veromir_72. License: All Rights Reserved.

Aeromexico playing cards

Source: archive.org Aeroméxico. License: All Rights Reserved.

An Aeroméxico DC-9 as shown on a postcard from 1974

Source: archive.org Aeroméxico. License: All Rights Reserved.

An Aeroméxico DC-9 as shown on a 1970s postcard

Source: www.ebay.com shineyvintageshop. License: All Rights Reserved.

Loggia and Mr Banks Stencil are used for the cover of the Mexico double issue by Travel + Leisure. Both typefaces were designed by Andrei Robu. The magazine logo appears to be based on Termina.

The luxurious Mexican art magazine Artes de México devoted its 66th issue to the historical figure of China Poblana and its interior was entirely composed with Rayuela (Alejandro Lo Celso, PampaType). The main text was set in Rayuela Gris, the titles in Rayuela Chocolate, the drop caps in Rayuela Luz. Art directed by Carolina Martínez Treviño.

Album art for Árbol de la Esperanza (“Tree of Hope”) by the Mexican band La Manta from Xalapa, Veracruz. From Estudio Cuatro Ojos (translated):

La Manta performs a fusion of traditional music from Mexico, mixed with elements of jazz and other musical genres.

The cover illustration is a pencil drawing that was digitally colorized. It’s inspired by the trees of life made in Metepec, Mexico, with a series of iconic elements of traditional Mexican culture that identify the group and some songs from the album.

For the interior pages of the booklet, the Amster typeface family by Francisco Gálvez was used, which includes a series of illuminated drop caps, used as illustrations for each theme. Some of them were taken from the original design and others were used in modified form.

According to a World Bank study, at least 37% of the food produced in Mexico is lost or wasted every year along the value chain, a figure that translates into an economic loss of 491 billion pesos annually.

Added to this, the number of Mexicans suffering from food security practically doubled with the pandemic caused by the arrival of Covid-19, going from 25 million affected in 2019 to 40 million Mexicans in 2020.

Pacto por la comida (“food pact”) is an initiative that is driven by Bancos de Alimentos de México (BAMX, Mexican food banks) and Waste Resource Action Programme (WRAP) that seeks to generate voluntary agreements to reduce food loss and waste in Mexico.

We designed a visual identity, inspired by the integrity of the brand, with a rebellious tone that represents human restlessness. Our design is based on the bond of union, monitoring and fluidity that requires a humanist project.

Thick and heavy Montserrat with a lot of character is used together with the fluidity of Castro Script, generating a visual and emotional contrast in the brand.

We developed the identity of this project as a simple experience and a direct message, the identity represents a connecting force linked by the moving element full of energy with the orange color combined with the deep black of the typography and the white base generating contrast.

The intensity of the color generates a contrast in the neutral base of black and white, obtaining a disruptive sense for the brand, its applications using intertwined elements with lines remove the rigidity that can have the typography making it more friendly to the public.

Source: archive.org Internet Archive. License: All Rights Reserved.

ITC Serif Gothic on the dust jacket of the first edition of Schrift und Buch im alten Mexiko, a book about writing and book culture in Mesoamerican indigenous societies. The typeface by Herb Lubalin and Tony Di Spigna is used in its Heavy weight, tightly spaced, with the M with pointed tops and the round uncialish E. It’s a shame that these forms are not included in the digital version.

The front jacket depicts a place hieroglyph with foundation date “2 House 10 Jaguar” and Lady 9 Pipe from the Codex Vindobonensis, page 3.

Source: archive.org Internet Archive. License: All Rights Reserved.

Title page

Pararemos Todo (“We will stop everything”) is a series of ten posters to raise the voices of women during the women’s strike in Mexico on March 9th 2020. Read the full story (in Spanish) on Vice.com.

Art direction and concept by Debora Rodam. Photography by Sol Bela, assisted by Jenny Tran. Designed by Álvaro Franca using several weights and widths of Sharp Grotesk.

A political analysis of the current situation (as of 1967) of Latin American countries and their relation to the United States, which they feel have "both grossly neglected and brazenly interfered in their internal affairs since 1945", written by historian Lewis Hanke of the University of California, Irvine and published through Anvil Books via Van Nostrand Reinhold Company. Sadly, many of the social and political problems covered in this over 50 year old book still seem relevant as of today.

The cover is set in Baskerville Old Face with "Anvil Books" seemingly set in News Gothic which is also used for the back cover text.

Inside the book, Times used for the body text with interesting headlines in Kabel (or Sans Serif).

La Vibora (“The Snake”) is a collection of Mexican children’s songs for playing and dancing, released in the Liederblattreihe Mosaik series by FidulaFon, the label of Austrian-German publisher Fidula-Verlag in 1982. Directed and arranged by José Posada-Charrúa and transcribed by Hiltraud Reckmann, the record comes with vocals and additionally in an instrumental version.

Both cover designs prominently feature Stripes. The cover for the instrumental version is exclusively typographic. The multiline face designed by Tony Wenman for Letraset in 1973 is here used in a playful and unconstrained way. Some of the letters were linked up by the use of alternates. At the center is a snake composed from letterforms, punctuation glyphs, and other bits and pieces found on the dry transfer sheet, arranged on a winding baseline. The track names are set in caps from ITC Avant Garde Gothic Condensed. On the other cover version (below), the dance is over: The serpent has been caught by the eagle of Anahuac – this scene is depicted in the Mexican coat of arms.

Johannes Holzmeister (1923–2002), who founded the Fidula-Verlag in 1948, is credited with the design. A CD version of the album is still available from Fidula – and its cover still uses Stripes.

This use of Stripes may not be the most refined one, but it’s probably my favorite. This post goes out to Iván Moreno, type designer from Mexico, who recently released his Octothorpe, a massively expanded reinterpretation of Stripes. ¡Muchas gracias!

Detail showing the snaky swash extension, complete with a tongue which probably was trimmed with an X-Acto knife.

Note the rotated ampersand that here serves more as a separator than a connector.

The Agave Plant for Product Design is a book that is a close documentary of Esther Toledano lamps work, a product designer who created a set of customisable lamps made with different agave plant-based recycled materials, and inspired by the ancient techniques used by the communities that have worked with the agave for centuries.

The research and development of that work is beautifully shown in this 200 page hand-bound book, by designer Cam(ila) Rivero-Lake. For the typography, Camila chose Grifinito for the headlines, Univers and Inconsolata for texts and captions.

Davida with alternating glyph colors on a postcard depicting Fiesta Village. The ornamental dingbats were part of Davida’s glyph set.

Built in 1969, Fiesta Village is one of four areas of Knott’s Berry Farm, a theme park located in Buena Park, California. From Wikipedia:

It was the second area constructed after the completion of Ghost Town. Stores like Casa California, restaurants like Pancho's Tacos, La Papa Loca, and La Victoria Cantina, games like Shoot If Yucan, and the themed rides like La Revolución, Jaguar!, and Montezooma's Revenge, along with the former attraction Tampico Tumbler, all contribute to the Mexican and Aztec theme of the area.

Don’t miss jericl cat’s vast collection of images “dedicated to Walter and Cordelia’s little Farm”.

A psychedelic, technicolor modification of Alphabet Lapidaire Monstre on the front cover of this 1960s mariachi album – perhaps inspired by traditional Mexican textiles or decorative patterns. The back cover features Alphabet Lapidaire Monstre too, but in a more typical, uncolored rendition. Egyptienne Bold Condensed also shows up in outline form, and the body text appears to be a wonky incarnation of Univers – perhaps the version made for IBM Selectric Composers.