Hand-drawn from top to bottom.
Hand-drawn from top to bottom.
Okay, you've got 24 hours!
I gave myself just one day to design without a brief, without a client, without needing to get it "right."
After my morning ritual of cacao, yoga, ocean swimming, meditation, I found myself imagining a little café in Oaxaca. The kind of place you stumble into on a cozy morning where you end up for hours. Clay tiles underfoot, shade from jacaranda trees, beautiful soft music playing from a mediocre sounding speaker inside. A place that lives close to the land but still feels very much like a secret.
The name Ola emerged from pure instinct. In Spanish, it means "wave," but it also hints at being alive, healed, spared, surviving. That felt right for where I am now in life and in my work. Something playful was already forming in my mind, geometric and fun, the letters themselves creating the visual identity.
Held by tradition. Carried by flavor.
Fear? What fear?
It's funny how fear can still show up even though this was a concept project for the studio. Not fear of failure, but something subtler: fear of being too much, of wasting time, of letting the idea be as big or strange or sincere as it really wants to be. Fear that I should be focusing on projects that pay more, like AI and bigger tech giants. But I've learned that fear isn't personal. It moves through us, and we can choose how we respond to it. And I very much have always wanted to create a brand in 24 hours to see what my creativity could come up with.
So I kept designing. Once I worked through the fear and let it flow through me, I started naturally designing cupcakes inspired by Día de los Muertos.
The cupcake wrappers drew directly from Oaxacan textiles. Their patterns and colors became the DNA of the brand. The same textiles that inspired the custom border illustrations I drew around the logos. Then the café and storefront took shape. The colors got louder. The whole thing started to breathe and become its own living thing.
Design like a kid again
What happens when you design without needing approval?
You start to feel everything you've been pushing aside: the pressure to impress, the urge to play it safe. But if you don't run, if you sit with it and keep going, something shifts. The work starts to feel like it's coming from a pure creative source again.
Ola became more than a café concept. It's a modern bakery identity rooted in place but made to travel across packaging, signage, and story. Born from the swirl of handmade sugar skulls, the texture of red earth, and 24 hours to push myself creatively.
This was my reset, a return to the part of me that started this whole thing to feel free and empowered. To create something alive without needing anyone's sign-off. Because when you bake something with love, the outside should show it.
Let's make something that matters
If you’re building something with meaning and you want to make it real, reach out. I’d love to hear what you’re working on.
ola
la
la
la
