Coquito's is a Puerto Rican restaurant located in the heart of the art district in Orlando, Florida.

Coquito's Latin Grill emerges as a visionary concept, an ode to the flavorful heritage of Puerto Rican cuisine, conceptualized for the dynamic and diverse palates of today's youth. Beyond just a restaurant, Coquito's is a cultural fusion, weaving together the warmth of familia, the excitement of modern trends, and the irresistible allure of Puerto Rican sabor.

The primary objective for this brand design project was to create a space that transcends the conventional, avoiding clichés and stereotypes associated with traditional Puerto Rican restaurants.

Puerto Rican restaurants, even to this day, portray themselves as having an "out of date" look when compared with today's current trends. This design will be unique and trendy enough to stay relevant throughout the ebb and flow of the market.

I wanted to focus on curating an ambiance that is both trendy and rooted in the authenticity of Puerto Rican culture, targeting a demographic that craves a fresh approach to their culinary experiences.

Crafting the identity for Coquito's Latin Grill was more than envisioning a restaurant; it was about strategically fusing tradition and modernity. In order to accomplish that goal, I needed to employ tools such as word maps and mood boards.

Once the word mapping was complete, it was time to create a moodboard to match the feeling that I was trying to achieve with this brand.

After the initial client discovery call and moodboard session were done, it was time for me to start the initial concepts.

Now that the discovery process was complete, I started with the initial concepts. During this phase, I like to just allow my mind to wander and allow the ideas to flow through me.

Having a strong discovery phase will make the initial concepts much more effective and is a very important part of my process.

After a few rounds and many different ideas, we decided that this logo would be the best way to represent Coquito's Latin Grill.

The logo breaks down into three main parts:

The Coqui (Frog)

The Flower

The Word Mark

I used the Coqui as the mascot for this piece because, in Puerto Rico, the Coqui frog is the national animal. I chose this animal not only because of its ties to the national animal but also because I have spent many summers in Puerto Rico, and under the thick, humid air, you hear hundreds of Coqui frogs just chatting away.

The sound that the Coqui makes brings me back to times of laughter, family, and late nights running around the streets playing with the kids. That feeling is one that I want to show through this design.

The flower I used for this piece is also a known staple in Puerto Rican history. The flower is called "Flor de Maga". This flower represents the bravery of the Puerto Rican people in defense of their land over the years of colonialism.

The reason for choosing this flower as part of this logo (as the jot or dot in the "i") is because the strength and beauty of this flower are the same strength and beauty I see in the Puerto Rican people today. Emphasizing that was very important to me.

The wordmark was actually the most challenging aspect of this project. The difficulty stemmed from the need to portray Puerto Rican culture in a way that is acceptable to Millennials and Generation Z while also being recognizable to the elder generation of Puerto Ricans.

So I solved that by hand drawing the wordmark to create a more natural and welcoming font or typeface. I used the current trend of big, bubbly letters as inspiration when creating it.

With the color palette, I used my personal experience from when I would visit my grandma and family and we would go into San Juan, and I would see all the wonderful colors on the houses, and it always felt so wonderful.

I wanted to keep that same feeling and used a double-split complementary color harmony scheme. Currently, in design trends, we have been moving back to bright, almost neon-like colors so finding good and wide range of colors for this brand that also matches my inspiration was fun :)

Being able to go through this journey from concept to reality has been an honor! I hope you enjoyed my work, as I have put the very best version of me into this project. The visual showcase is arguably my favorite part of the project. Bringing this logo to life will start to develop the visual design of the brand in its entirety. This is where I get to loosen up a little and build a system that allows Coquito's Latin Grill to connect with their target audience.