4/6/2025
The Santa Catrina brand
Introducing "Santa Catrina Cabernet Sauvignon", A unique blend of Booze and boos inspired by Mexican heritage & deep roots revolving around "Dia de los Muertos."
Creating Santa Catrina was never about virality, it was about experimenting with brand identity through design, storytelling, and culture representation in a way that felt personal yet professional. Instead of just making an ad, I decided I should build a world for the Santa Catrina brand.
The Strategic ROI of Lore in brands!
Santa Catrina is instantly recognizable. From her Mexican flag-inspired dress to her throne made out of bones and her mariachi guardians. BOLD visuals rooted in culture, and hella stylized. That kind of aesthetic is what separates Santa CAtrina from “just another wine label” and turns it into a movement! La Santa Catrina is not just La Catrina or La Santa Muerte.
Santa Catrina is the birth of a fusion between the two entities! Her look incorporates the elegance of La Catrina, the spiritual reverence of La Santa Muerte, and the colors that represent Mexico. She’s a new goddess born from ancient traditions.
In the promo, Aztec gods Tláloc (rain, fertility) and Quetzalcoatl (creation, knowledge) perform a human sacrifice to bring Santa Catrina to life. It’s mythic, dramatic, and rooted in Mesoamerican cosmology. Tláloc’s starts the ritual by striking the sacrifice with THE pink lightning. This is inspired by the Maya and Aztec ceremonial practices were they often adorn the sacrifice in gold before sending them off.
Santa Catrina brand is built on emotional branding because those are the type of brands that have caught my own attention. The characters, lore, & storytelling aren’t just for show.
When you create a world for your brand it can make people feel something... & That feeling... is what sticks with them.
This feeling cannot be achieved by talking about the "benefits" of products. Feelings stick around wayy longer than a list of benefits ever could.
Brands only mean something when you can connect it to a narrative. Santa Catrina represents mystery, beauty, death, and rebirth, all infused with cultural representation.
From the elegance of Santa Catrina's design to the symbolism behind her presence & entrance. My aim was evoking feelings not a list of features or stats.
That's how you make sure your brand withstands the test of time!
STOP chasing trends!
Chasing trends can lock you in time, but building a branded universe creates long-term potential
- ★ Merchandise
- ★ Collaborations
- ★ Evolving characters
- ★ Expanding intellectual property (IP)
That's how you start building real brand equity.
Trends are dated, they lock you into a time period and the high volume makes people tired of seeing it after a while even if the algorithm is still pushing the content.
Doing it this way allows me to go beyond just a video , there's potential for the IP, Santa Catrina to expand into merch & collabs.
The kind of branding that grows along with your audience.
Characters you can revisit, evolve, merchandise, and more importantly build upon.
These characters are based off combinations of real people, but eventually they can turn into full independent identities the more I build upon them.
Santa Catrina Logo
Designed under the Nexus★Hue umbrella , the Santa Catrina logo draws from gothic elegance, and Mexican symbolism day of the dead, spiritual and powerful. It's more than a badge, It’s a seal of myth and memory. This brand identity wasn’t designed as a one-off thing. It can be scaled. From packaging to merch & digital experiences. The logo is designed to adapt in different environments. It works well for social media apps because the design is compact and elegant. Making it stand out but also easy to recognize even on small screens! High-concept high-function type shih that works across a whole lotta mediums.
Santa Catrina world building
The Mariachi Guardians: The mariachi clothes are Inspired by traditional "traje de charro" outfits from Guadalajara! This is where my grandma's sid eof the family is originally from. I re-imagined them using Nexus★Hue colors and branding. They're not just background characters, they’re the bridge between the old world and the underworld. Calling to Santa Catrina with a tune to roam the earth once more!
The Cora Influence: Santa Catrina’s attendants are based on the traditional clothing of the Cora people! An Indigenous group from Tepic Nayarit. Their clothing, embroidery, and symbolism bring authenticity and diversity to the world I’m building. I decided to incorporate them because I lived in Tepic Nayarit with my grandparents when I was younger and actually wore the outfit a couple times lol. Every part of the brand is almost like an extension of myself.
Temple-Inspired Set Design: The set is heavily influenced by Maya temples and architecture. I used statues of deities like Quetzalcoatl and Tláloc. A sacred, space where the living and the dead collide, the perfect birthplace for Santa Catrina. They are neither in the future nor the past, a combination between the two timelines
Scaling the Santa Catrina Brand Santa Catrina is technically my second brand under the Nexus★Hue umbrella. The logo and brand needed to play well within the Nexus★Hue universe. Carrying the soul of Nexus★Hue, while standing on its own as a new brand!
Ready to build a brand universe that sets you apart?
Let’s create something scalable, memorable, and unmistakably yours.
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