The other day I received an inquiry about suggestions for creating a Latino site. Since I am not an expert in website design I did research on several Latino/Hispanic sites and made some observations. Among many, I visited some very popular sites like:
Fonts like Arial, Verdana and Helvetica were the ones more used due to their ability to look good in most web browsers. But that's common to many sites on the internet, not just Hispanic/Latino sites.
Imagery in general was focused to enhance the topics of greater interest, but I didn't find any particular graphic element besides cultural iconography [Aztec/Mayan border motifs, sun-gods, Olmec heads, etc.] that was prominent.
What I noticed the most about design, is that colors were warmer and a favoritism for orange+blue or red+orange combinations stood out in most sites. I was really impressed with how this combination of colors is used like a "must-have" when designing for a Latino/Hispanic audience.
Here is an example of a very good website that I think has taken graphic elements into consideration for appealing to this "hot-passionate" audience. You'll see how the Cool Colored [blue] is used for non-Hispanics and Warm Colored [red-orange] is being used for Hispanics.
Comments
As a sr. art director and designer (and hispanic) i agree that when communicating to hispanic markets it's almost an impulse to use bright, warm and loud "tropical colors". I don't think it's wrong, but as an artist u tend to want to do something different... but no matter how hard i try ...the oranges and reds and bright blues come flying right out! ¡Viva!
I'd have to agree! In the area I live, we have had an influx of Latinos. I am not a graphic designer or Latino descent, I’m Irish descent. I recently hired someone from Colombia and another person from Mexico. I have been teaching both, how to use Excel and Word and have noticed that they consistently use Arial type fonts and warm colors in their documents. It’s weird, but just something I’ve noticed with these two I have working for me.
I'm an hispanic graphic designer, and I also have that impulse (as DR said) to use bright and tropical colors when comunicating ideas to the latino market (in fact I have used them, take a look at www.natura.com and you'll see). But I think that's a too basic understanding of the hispanic people.
But my opinion is that the latino community is much more than tropical, caribean or mexican. It is actually a mix of numerous cultures and skin colors. We are not white, not black, not indian, not middle east, not italian, not spanish... we're a mix!
I think that we hispanics tend to basic colors because the visual enviroment we are raised in is very basic too (signs, advertising, logos. colors, architecture, ect... everything we see).
One of the reasons is because small and mid sized business people and corporations are not used to hire professional consulting in marketing, design, advertising, architecture, etc.... Only big, global corporations do that in our countries.
So, the result is that most of the enviroment we see everyday in our daily living is visually contaminated rather than aesthetic. It is full of bright solid colors and "homemade" typefaces.
And as we grow up that's what we think sells...
I think the latino community is a fertil field, willing and expecting to be educated in the process of learning to see, by being filled with different concepts, colors and ideas.
After all, we are smart people too...
I'm an hispanic art director and graphic designer and would like to know if there is an 'hispanic hub' online or otherwise in the US where one can meet, contact, exchange info with other ad's & gd's...
As far as colors and type that appeal to hispanics I'm reluctant to define, classify and box into stereotype anybody, any group, even culture. I have a long carreer working in three continents and in spite of predictables and obvious trends I have been surprised countless times with the unexpected. The real ingredients that we must have in mind if we're going to generalize about hispanics is that our cultures are closer to the earth, we're emotional, intuitive and spontaneous. From our long political-economic-military rocky road we have learned to be resourceful, creative, daring and especially fun loving in spite of unending setbacks, so we love to party - we have learned to appreciate and respect our families, so we make them large - and we're proud, proud of our heritage and our identity.
America has been selling it's image and life style to our countries for decades. We bought it. But we realized our own political systems maybe will never deliver a real working system, so we're here and we bring luggage but we're also eager to learn and discover and become active participants of this system and ideal lifestyle we have been sold through...american style advertising and graphic imagery.
Hi... what an interesting resource with great dialogue! My company, Captura Group http://www.capturagroup.com specializes in reaching out to the US Hispanic market online. While color and font and other visual images are important for overall design and aesthetic appeal, the critical success factors for websites targeting the US Hispanic market is that they are "in-language" and "in-culture". If you want to chat more about the US Hispanic market online or see any creative examples of the websites our company has developed in this space, drop me a note. Saludos!
Howdy to all reading this post , this website has very bright colors
take a look at it, hey a Latino owns the site, I often visit the site I think its cool
The site is based in Los Angeles, a site about L.A. in L.A.
http://www.laavenue.com
Iceman
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