la casita mercado
La Casita Mercado is a fictional Latino grocery store brand designed to reflect the real shopping habits, cultural values, and community connections often missing in mainstream retail branding.
Grounded in bilingual accessibility, heritage-driven visuals, and community-centered experiences, this project explores how a culturally inclusive brand system can transform not just how a store looks but how it feels.
In many Latino neighborhoods, mercados are more than just places to buy food, they’re social and cultural anchors.¹ Yet even as the Hispanic grocery market continues to grow rapidly, branding strategies have failed to evolve with it.²
Mainstream grocery branding often overlooks the values, behaviors, and lived experiences of Latino communities. While Hispanic consumers represent a fast-growing market, they also show a strong preference for in-store shopping, fresh foods, and traditional staples like rice, beans, tortillas, and fresh meats.³
Many Latino immigrants continue to shop not just for groceries, but for a deeper sense of connection to culture, family, and community. La Casita Mercado was created as a response to that disconnect: a reimagining of what a grocery experience could feel like if it was truly built around the people it serves.
Despite the Hispanic grocery market’s rapid growth, major grocery retailers continue to overlook the cultural behaviors and needs of Latino consumers. Research shows that Latino shoppers cook at home more often, shop for traditional staples like rice, beans, and meats, and strongly prefer in-store grocery shopping over digital options.³ However, branding efforts often fall short, focusing on generic translations or trend-driven design without cultural depth.⁴ What we get is sterile corporate designs or stereotype branding.
Too often, branding treats Latino shoppers like an afterthought and not a real audience. We don’t need brands guessing who we are. We need spaces built by people who already know. La Casita Mercado is that vision that is grounded in reality, not stereotypes.
Logo Process
The logo process went through a lot of drafts before it found its final form. At first, I tried creating a pattern that felt like a cozy lace fabric, something soft and homey, like the textiles you might find in a family kitchen or living room. While it captured a sense of familiarity of a home, it didn’t clearly communicate the bigger idea of community and connection that La Casita needed to stand for.
Once I officially landed on the name “la casita” (The little home), the direction became clear: home should be at the center of the brand, literally. I shifted the focus to a small house (casita) icon, repeating it in a radial circle to create a feeling of a sun. This not only symbolized warmth and family, but also hinted at tradition, gathering, and energy without needing heavy explanation.
When it came to color, I knew I wanted a palette that felt vibrant and lively without leaning too hard into the colors of any specific country’s flag. The goal was to create something that felt open and welcoming to all Latino backgrounds. A neutral but joyful mix that anyone could feel connected to.
Patterns
The casita icon naturally evolved into a repeatable pattern that became a core branding element. It is flexible enough to show up across packaging, signage, and store graphics, but always tying back to the heart of the brand. I also created versions of the pattern using different countries’ flag colors for more specific, culturally rooted moments.
You’ll see this come to life in shelf stickers, product labels, and other in-store elements.
I also created a supporting food pattern. The food pattern, available in all the main brand colors, features a series of vibrant vector illustrations, a mix of custom and curated Adobe assets to represent staple foods found across a variety of Latin American countries. Special care was taken to include ingredients from different cultures to create a sense of welcome and recognition for everyone. The pattern is mainly used on labels, packaging, and grocery bags to add warmth, energy, and cultural connection to everyday shopping.
The food pattern brings together everyday staples found across Latin America, featuring pupusas, empanadas, tamales, cilantro, tomatoes, garlic, avocados, platanos, and beans. Each element was chosen to reflect foods that are deeply tied to home cooking and cultural tradition, creating a visual language that feels both familiar and welcoming
Slogans & Brand Voice
Beyond the visual system, a set of brand slogans was developed to strengthen La Casita Mercado’s voice across packaging, signage, and in-store messaging. Each slogan was crafted to serve a different emotional purpose within the brand experience.
Primary Slogan:
“Rooted in Tradition, Grown with Community”
This reflects the heart of the brand and is used across core applications like signage, bags, and community messaging.
Secondary (Food-Driven) Slogan:
“El Sabor Empieza Aquí” (The Flavor Starts Here)
Used on food packaging and displays, this slogan speaks directly to the cultural importance of flavor and tradition at the center of every meal.
The choice to have one slogan in English and the other in Spanish was intentional as it reflects the bilingual reality of many Latino households, where culture and language naturally blend together. It was important that both languages felt fully at home within the brand, not translated or secondary, but equally powerful and welcoming.
Food Packaging
When deciding which products to design for, I focused on everyday foods that hold a deep place in Latino households, not just in tradition, but in daily routines. I picked tortillas, fresh meat, preserved sauces, and juices because they’re foods you see all the time in real life. Choosing a variety of product types also allowed the branding to show its full range.
Some products, like tortillas and fresh meat, kept the original La Casita logo and color palette. Others, like the juices and jarred sauces, gave me a chance to play with country-specific colors and cultural references, while still keeping everything tied back to the main brand.
Designing for a Latino Staple: Tortillas
For La Casita Mercado’s tortilla packaging, two packaging variations were created: one for corn tortillas and one for flour tortillas. Both use the food pattern as a backdrop, but with distinct background colors to make it easy for shoppers to instantly recognize the difference between the two.
This decision came from observing real shopping habits and from personal experience. For many Latino households, tortillas are a staple food bought regularly, not just for special occasions. Research shows that Latino shoppers strongly prefer fresh, traditional ingredients like tortillas, rice, and beans as everyday essentials.³ Because tortillas are such a familiar, frequent purchase, packaging needed to be fast and intuitive to navigate.
A bold “30 count” label was placed prominently on the front, following a common visual practice seen across other tortilla brands. Quantity is often highlighted in larger type because shoppers are accustomed to spotting it quickly, it’s an expectation built into how these staple products are typically packaged.
While it may not always align with minimal or purely aesthetic design trends, respecting familiar shopping habits was more important.
Good branding should not just look good. It needs to work for the specific communities it serves. In this case, designing for La Casita Mercado meant honoring real Latino shopping habits, not forcing the brand to fit into an outside idea of what packaging “should” look like.
Fresh Meats and Jarred Products
Along with designing for tortillas, I also chose fresh meats and preserved sauces to show how the La Casita Mercado branding could work across different types of grocery products. Be it refrigerated items and dry, shelf-stable packaging.
The food pattern creates a sense of seamlessness across all products.
For general items like tortillas and meat which aren’t tied to a specific country, the branding stays true to the original logo colors, creating consistency throughout.
For country-specific products, like the Mexican jarred salsas, the logo pattern shifts to reflect the colors of the Mexican flag, reinforcing the cultural connection while still keeping the overall brand identity intact.
The juice bottles follow this approach, where each flavor reflects a specific country through color shifts in the logo and food pattern. The Chicha Morada bottle, representing a traditional Peruvian drink, uses the same flexible branding system, but with colors that align with the Peruvian flag. Instead of squeezing the second slogan onto the wrap, I placed it on the bottle cap to keep the design clean and focused. In the mockup, you can see one juice bottle with the slogan displayed on the cap, demonstrating how the pattern adapts while staying true to the core La Casita Mercado identity.
In-Store Branded Elements
The aesthetic of La Casita Mercado is designed to be as welcoming and lively as the community it serves. The store carries the same bright, joyful color palette that is seen across the product packaging, creating a seamless transition from the shelves to the store’s layout.
The grocery bags for LaCasita Mercado are designed with simplicity in mind, using the one-color logo and the main slogan to reinforce the brand identity. I chose to use the one-color logo to highlight the versatility of the branding, especially when it comes to materials that have color limitations. The food pattern was integrated to continue the branding across different materials, ensuring consistency.
For the shopping basket, I wanted to bring a bit of playfulness into the design, so I used three main colors rather than sticking to a single solid color. This choice adds visual interest and variety, helping the basket stand out in the store while still feeling consistent with the overall store branding. I placed the main slogan on the long side of the basket. The La Casita Mercado logo appears on both sides, with the short side featuring just the logo due to space constraints
The shopping cart mockups show how the carts come into play in the store. The first mockup focuses on the handlebar, where a repeated casita pattern and the store name sit front and center, while the main logo is placed on the seat part of the cart. The second mockup uses the real estate on the cart creatively by incorporating an advertisement for the children’s birthday list, where both the logo and slogan are displayed. This reinforces the community feel of the store, showing that the brand’s focus on community is present in all spaces.
To bring La Casita Mercado’s identity into the people who represent it, I designed staff uniforms that combine warmth, function, and cultural reference. The casita pattern is placed along the edges — a subtle nod to Latin American textiles — adding visual texture while staying true to the brand’s roots.
Each uniform also features the main slogan, “Rooted in Tradition, Grown with Community,” which reinforces the store’s values in a quiet but consistent way. It’s a wearable reminder of what the brand stands for — care, connection, and cultural pride.
Environmental Branding
The bright, welcoming color palette is carried throughout the store’s environment, ensuring that every corner feels connected to the overall brand.
Aisle Signage: Emphasizing Bilingual Inclusion
The aisle signage for La Casita Mercado features the main round logo at the top, anchoring the design and immediately identifying the brand. Below, the sign is split into two columns: one displaying product information in Spanish, and the other in English.
This bilingual format ensures the space feels approachable for everyone, whether they speak Spanish, English, or both. It’s a simple yet thoughtful design decision that adds comfort and inclusion to a space that could otherwise feel unfamiliar. The signage reinforces the store’s commitment to being welcoming and accessible to all shoppers.
Shelf Stickers: Celebrating Cultural Identity
From the signage to the shelves, every element in the store is designed to make the shopping experience intuitive and culturally connected.
Shelf stickers use the casita logo pattern, recolored to reflect the flag of the country the product is from. They’re placed directly onto the steel shelving, just like you’d see in a real grocery aisle. These are small but meaningful touches. They blend in seamlessly with the environment, creating a quiet “aha” moment when someone catches the colors of their home country. It’s a subtle way to celebrate cultural identity right where it matters, at the shelf, where decisions are made.
Cardboard Product Displays: Designed for Sales and Brand Consistency
The cardboard product display uses the same bright colors, food pattern, and secondary slogan to maintain the store’s aesthetic and visual identity. The mockup shows how this works for general products, like tortillas, that don’t have a specific country of origin. The branding stays consistent and eye-catching but doesn’t rely on flag colors or country-specific references. Instead, it reinforces the store’s vibrant, welcoming feel with universal design elements.
This display doesn’t just look good, it’s designed to catch attention, highlight key products, and support sales. By incorporating the cultural pattern and bright colors, it ensures the display is engaging, while still serving its primary purpose of promoting the product. I wanted to show that being culturally thoughtful doesn’t mean you forget about the business side. You can design a store that feels inviting and community-centered, but also delivers on functionality and business goals.
Weekly Circular
As part of creating a complete brand experience for La Casita Mercado, I designed a weekly circular. These print ads remain an essential part of communication in many Latino markets, where weekly specials and store updates are traditionally shared through flyers found in-store, in bags, or delivered to homes. It’s important to recognize that for many latino families, print circulars are still a trusted and familiar way of shopping. It is often browsed at the kitchen table or passed along between relatives. They’re not just about deals; they’re about maintaining routine, sharing information, and staying connected. The flyer also gives space to highlight community events, like tamale-making classes, which are a key part of the store’s identity. La Casita Mercado isn’t just a place to shop, it’s a space to gather, share traditions, and build community through food.
This flyer does more than letting customers know about the week’s specials, it’s about trust and understanding how the real world is for this demographic. The circular also includes cultural features like a tamale-making class announcement, a Dominican hot bar menu, and branded product groupings like “Mexican Tamale Making Essentials” and “In-Between Salvadorian Snacking.” It’s a reminder that this brand understands its shoppers beyond the checkout line.
Conclusion
La Casita Mercado is a celebration of culture, family, and flavor but more importantly, it’s a design system built to serve a community that’s often overlooked in mainstream branding.
While no latino experience is exactly the same, many share a deep connection to food, tradition, and places that feel familiar. This project leans into those everyday moments , designing a space that speaks the language, reflects the culture, and feels like home. Not just a grocery store, but una casita; a little house full of comfort, familiarity, and community.
¹ Lopez, Maria. Cultural Anchors: Latino Markets in American Cities. 2023.
² Food Trade News. Hispanic Grocery Trends Report 2024.
³ L.E.K. Consulting. U.S. Hispanic Shopper Insights: Behavioral Patterns and Opportunities. 2021.
⁴ VeraContent. How Brands Can Better Connect with Latino Audiences. 2023.
Designer/Illustrator: Desiree Nunez
Instructor: Paul D. Kepple,
OhnoBlazeFace Type:
Avenir Type: Adrian Frutiger and published by Monotype
Spring 2025
