Design Do's & Dont's
Mexico likes innovation and creativity while keeping its essence at the same time. The design community loves to get inspired by trends and global styles.
90% of the population is mestizo, nevertheless, the native roots are still influenced. For this reason, it's important to showcase Mexican Latinos through imagery. From time to time, it’s ok to show distinctive ethnicities when publishing content, especially in cosmopolitan cities like Mexico City, Tijuana, and Guadalajara.
Include latinos
Be inclusive
Women empowerment, LGBTQ+, Indigenous communities
Use bold fonts and lettering
Use bold modern illustrations
Use colourful palettes
Be careful with Indigenous content
Avoid racism against Indigenous people and other communities.
Mobile first
Create templates to edit easily in mobile.
Include all regions
Do content for different regions of Mexico, not only CDMX and Riviera Maya.
Different topics
Design thinking of local people's needs. eg. feminism, non-profit org, local small businesses (flower shop, restaurants).
Marketing purposes
Marketing Templates perform better when they’re truly local.
Keep the number and
percentage % together, e.g. 50%.
Dont's
Use Caucasian or Asian photos
If there's no latinos in the photo, don't use it.
Use cliché imagery
eg. western cow-boy, donkeys
Show Spanish culture
eg. no Spain, no Christopher Columbus, no bulls, no DÍA DE LA RAZA (Columbus Day). Avoid red and yellow colour combination.t
Use old fonts
eg. avoid using Barrio, Barriecito fonts. And fonts without accents and "ñ" glyphs.
Show cockfight content
Even though in some regions they're allowed, avoid using this concept and imagery for templates.
Use imagery with this hat
The Mexican hat is NOT this one.
A way to know, is that the Mexican hat doesn't have pom poms.
Show people barefoot on the desert
Poverty in Mexico exists as in other countries. Don't generalise that all of them are walking barefoot.
Tex-Mex Food
eg. don't use hard taco shells pictures, tex-mex nachos, etc.
Use sexist language or content
Avoid any content that incites machismo.
eg. boys can't cry, women should have a baby, blame the victim, etc.
Show or mention Narcos
Don't connect Mexico with narcos. Mafia exists everywhere.
Create 'Cinco de mayo' content
Mexicans don't consider this a national event at all. It is not celebrated there. Mexico's independence day is September 16, NOT May 5.
Global Services
About project
Credits
Questions?
These guides are made for our internal marketing teams to help with asset localisation that feel truly local.
Brought to you by Marketing Localisation, Global Services, in collaboration with
i18n Templates team.
#localisation channel on Slack