Scrap the ‘fiesta’ fonts.

October 8, 2023 8:00 AM

LA Times arts columnist Carolina Miranda suggests hitting Ctrl-Alt-Delete for the cliched Hispanic Heritage aesthetics. Naturally, there is even a font called “Taco Fiesta” — because I guess Latinos are one big taco party? For culturally rooted but not cliche fonts, typographer Juan Villanueva recommends Beatriz Lozano's font Aguas (shifts in width and curvature inspired by hand painted signs in Mexican food markets) and Miguel Angel Contreras Cruz's Cemita fonts: Cemita Milanesa (breaded steak) is a sans fat face with convex forms; Cemita Quesillo is a script inspired by quesillo (cheese from Oaxaca).

Design critic Anne Quito has written about a similar phenomenon in the Asian community: “chop suey fonts."

posted by spamandkimchi (39 comments total)

Oh man, where to start? A little background: I am a white male, born and raised in Chicago. My partner of 30 years is Latina female. Her entire family is Mexican American, also all born and raised in Chicago.

I quit a 20 year career in advertising where I was an art director, creative director, often a copywriter (thought hat wasn't my title). I learned a lot during those 20 years, including doing some marketing for Hispanic markets.

I recently got a job as the (Marketing Manager/At Director/Copywriter/designer/A Whole Bunch of Other Unrelated Stuff) at a nonprofit social services Org that is primarily Latino. I am one of a tiny number of people that does not speak Spanish there. I am (as far as I can tell) the only non-Hispanic male that works there (it's primarily women).

Anyway, I had to come up with a theme and design and layout/concept for their annual "Summer Fiesta" which is for donors and people with money, not for the participants of our programs or any of the people we serve. Technically, anyone could come to the Fiesta, but it was a ticketed fundraising (schmoozing) event and it was $180/head which mean it was for our young, mostly Hispanic Board members, donors, their friends, various corporate people who are associated with us. Almost all (not entirely) Hispanic people went to this thing, it happens every year. People who can afford a $180 Wednesday after-work event, even with an open bar and food.

I thought "the community we serve is about 60%/40% Mexican and Puerto Rican, so let's not make it cliché for either ethnicity." Also: these are people who are dropping a lot of money at a swanky restaurant on a Wednesday, mostly 30-50-something corporate types showing up after work.

I came up with what I thought was a cool, understated, (but still Fun!) look that still felt contemporary and Chicago 2023. Like something a hip Latin-fusion restaurant might do. Slick, cool, fun (I'll add again!), but not corny or Mexican cliché. The people coming know fine dining, slick nightlife, they are used to seeing contemporary design, they have disposable income, etc.

I'm not saying I'm the greatest designer in history. But my idea went over like a lead balloon. "That's not colorful enough for a Fiesta!" a couple Hispanic people in positions above me chimed in. And then more heads nodded, More color, more Mexican, more FIESTA! (I will add that several people I work with loved my designs and thought they were cool and a fun alternative, but they were not the decision makers).

Long story short, we ended up with a look that was way closer to Taco Bell circa 1985 than what I proposed, Mexican restaurant-cliché bright colors, typefaces, even photos of Mariachis (no Mariachis at the event, but I had to put a photo of them on the promo stuff!).

I was running out of time, new to the job, and basically forced to make the thing look like a Mexican restaurant ad. I was forced to do this by Hispanic people of Mexican, Puerto Rican and other Latino heritages. People with money and nice cars, but everyone of them 100% genuine Latino.

So this post makes me nod my head in absolute agreement. And then laugh out loud.
posted by SoberHighland at 8:51 AM on October 8, 2023 [60 favorites]

Definitely could use a lot more Hispanic based fonts and a lot more styles used in different parts of the world.

That said, I would be very slow to adopt a font inspired by Monterey Jack as representative of American culture. Inspired by the history of the cheese maybe, but not inspired by the cheese itself.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:06 AM on October 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

I was forced to do this by Hispanic people of Mexican, Puerto Rican and other Latino heritages. People with money and nice cars, but everyone of them 100% genuine Latino.

It's difficult to make aesthetic arguments for representation of such a diverse group as Latinos when you're not originally from a particular part of the culture. Even if you're quite familiar with it, embedded with it.

I knew a respected white professor that studied traditional Mexican dance for decades and choreographed pieces for a student ballet folklórico group at her university. She was well loved until she made a decision about cultural representation for a piece that the group disagreed with. The argument about the piece was acrimonious enough that they decided she would no longer choreograph for them. I only got her side of the story. Never knew those students, but... the decision was theirs to make.
posted by Mister Cheese at 9:40 AM on October 8, 2023

respected white professor

"White" is a poor descriptor for this conversation, as there are roughly 47 million white Hispanic people running around.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:47 AM on October 8, 2023 [7 favorites]

Per SoberHighland's point, I think ethnic kitsch goes over very differently when it is both from and targeted at the community in question, than when it is a show put on for outsiders. I am thinking in particular of the difference between the nightly entertainment at the (late, lamented) Sammy's Roumainan and the bottle dance that (at least as of a few years ago?) was part of the floor show at Tatiana's featuring dancers wearing Hasidic garb and fake peyot.

Neither was particularly subtle or tasteful. Both were high-energy crowd-pleasers. But one makes me much more uncomfortable than the other, and I don't think it's about who the performers are so much as who the audience is (or who they are perceived to be). It's the difference between "hey, look at us!" and "hey, look at them!"
posted by goingonit at 10:00 AM on October 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

Like Miranda's article says, there are way more interesting Latin American inspirations for graphic design than Taco Bell. There is no graphic design more instantly identifiable as Mexican than the 1968 Olympics.

Still I have a certain fondness for the kitchy "ethnic" fonts even if I personally would never use them. Although as SoberHighland's story reminds us sometimes minority communities embrace some of that kitsch themselves. See also Why do so many Mexican Americans defend Speedy Gonzales? (and the TVTropes version).
posted by Nelson at 10:05 AM on October 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

I'm not Hispanic in any sense, I just know something about history of calligraphy. Aguas looks related to Gothic lettering from southern Europe-- Italy, Spain, and France went with rounded letter forms which are much more legible than the German picket-fence Gothic.

I'm pleased to see that the style is loved, remembered, and possibly still used for hand-painted signs.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 10:18 AM on October 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

I feel the same way about Irish fonts. I'm 100 percent Irish, and all I see in the font area is Celtic lettering, with an occasional shamrock thrown in...Surely we can do better...
posted by Czjewel at 10:27 AM on October 8, 2023 [5 favorites]

“ White" is a poor descriptor for this conversation, as there are roughly 47 million white Hispanic people running around.”

Though, interestingly, you described yourself as white in the first part of your comment. 🤔

But to be fair, writing Non-Hispanic White each time is cumbersome.
posted by wilky at 10:33 AM on October 8, 2023

Though, interestingly, you described yourself as white in the first part of your comment. 🤔

I think you are mixing up comments from two different users.
posted by mbrubeck at 10:37 AM on October 8, 2023 [4 favorites]

I am obsessing over Gochisu-Dofu, the ultimate weeknight dinner. I’m Carolina A. Miranda, art and design columnist at the Los Angeles Times, and I’ve got all the bean curd and the essential culture news:

This is a serious topic, but this is not serious coverage. If memory serves, there was a FPP on "Spanish" restaurant placemats and menus that had more to say about the typography.

Similarly, the 'chop suey' fonts, 'tiki' fonts, 'safari' fonts, and fonts meant to evoke Arabic, Greek, Hebrew or Cyrillic, etc.
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:19 AM on October 8, 2023

roughly 47 million white Hispanic people running around.

Hoo-boy is that true! Years ago I ran into a woman of Argentinian heritage (she was born in Queens and proudly represented of herself as White-Italian/Argentinian) who sneeringly told me that Mexicans "aren't really Latin-people, they're like ...Indians!"

I didn't bother to tell her that my wife was Mexican-American, nor did I tell her to fuck off, but I should have.
posted by SoberHighland at 11:24 AM on October 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

(also, Papyrus. '90s shareware font collections used to unapologetic about calling these 'exotic' fonts, and I see some still are.)
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:25 AM on October 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

this might not read as Hispanic to people outside the community, but i remember when i could see Mexican Black Letter on customized cars in the neighborhood & i loved the look.
posted by graywyvern at 11:42 AM on October 8, 2023 [4 favorites]

hand painted signs in Mexican food markets

There was a controversy last year in Mexico City about the mayor of Cuauhtémoc decreeing that the hand painted rótulos had to go, replaced with an anodyne san serif borough logo.

A Mexico City Mayor Tried to Erase Street Food Art. The Community Is Fighting Back.
posted by zamboni at 11:58 AM on October 8, 2023 [4 favorites]

The problem I see, as a middle-aged, generally non-Spanish speaking Mexican-American, who isn't particularly art-fluent, is that I'm expected to see a font designed by a Latin American with legit Latin-American influence, and recognize it as such. The examples given are lovely and all, but I would have had no reason to think they were designed with influence of any particular culture or ethnicity. Perhaps a person well versed in design could explain why the fonts are specially suited to Latin American usage, but I tend to think that if you're explaining, you're on the losing end of the argument.

The bigger cliche seems to be not so much a font, but the use of color. And even that is linked to my upbringing in Los Angeles, which has had a large Mexican influence from its beginning. To my eyes, the 1968 Olympic graphic design says "1968" more than "Mexico", or "Latin America" broadly. And I have no idea what kind of design that could possibly speak to Latin America broadly.
posted by 2N2222 at 12:05 PM on October 8, 2023 [4 favorites]

suited to Latin American usage

I'm not sure the point is that they're suited to Latin America as much as that they were created and widely used there. A lot of original fonts were created there but the only ones we recognize are the "Fiesta" related ones -- this seems like an attempt to address that.

As always the confounding factor with Latin American culture is that a huge amount of it was forced (along with the Spanish language) on the area up through 1820. Personally I would love to see more fonts based on the indigenous languages.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 12:30 PM on October 8, 2023

As a working graphic designer I've got to put in a word of defence for fonts like Taco Fiesta as well as Chinese Dragon, Alhambra, Diogenes and the rest. These fonts have a history, and they have a useful niche when someone wants to visually telegraph that they're selling tacos or souvlaki or egg rolls. Most likely the person who's asking for this kind of design is a member of that cultural community themselves and aware of why they're making their choice.

Is it for me to put a tactful hand on theirs and suggest, instead, a tasteful Helvetica?

No, I would not put Chinese Dragon on the cover of a book of Tang poetry. But for a fast food menu it might be just the thing.
posted by zadcat at 12:31 PM on October 8, 2023 [11 favorites]

Heh, (a little off target, but) this discussion makes me imagine an Oktoberfest event being promoted with entirely Bauhaus design. (I'm sure this has been done somewhere and I'm too lazy to search for it, but you will nearly always see traditional very old-fashioned Bavarian motifs and typography for such an event.)

I agree, zadcat: Sometimes you need to instantly telegraph info to a viewer/reader and sometimes using the obvious—even cliché—is a perfectly good choice. Sometimes it's used ironically, or self-referentially. It doesn't always equate to a horrible slur or negative stereotype.

I just thought a Chicago social services organization in 2023 that specializes in bilingual and Spanish speaking Hispanic recipients would appreciate a wider view of "Hispanic Culture" than Mexican Restaurant 101. Heck, a good number of the people we are temporarily housing are refugees dumped here by the Texas government. I've met some of them, some are from Venezuela, one family is from Colombia originally. "Fiesta" just means party in Spanish, it doesn't have to mean "generic Mexican restaurant happy-hour."

At least I didn't have to use a saguaro cactus wearing a sombrero, so there's that.
posted by SoberHighland at 12:44 PM on October 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

First thoughts: Cultural appropriation in typography

I don’t want to regurgitate Pater’s chapter, because it is worth the price of the book alone, so I’ll be using the following criteria to look into the idea of cultural appropriation in typography:

1. Who created the font? Why did they create the font? What was its intended purpose?
2. Is a font innocent by itself? Is it only how it is used?
3. Questions over power and control: who has it? Can it change?
4. What is the role of typography in general?

posted by zamboni at 12:51 PM on October 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

If memory serves, there was a FPP on "Spanish" restaurant placemats and menus that had more to say about the typography.

Maybe American Mexican Food, which linked to an Eater piece on LA’s Spanish Restaurants.
posted by zamboni at 1:04 PM on October 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

Ah the Ocktoberhaus reference...I personally adore the kitchy Alpine design elements, having spent my 20 and 21st year in Nurnberg. House trim and shutters with hearts cut out, flowering vines, stags, and pretzels, lots of pretzels.
posted by Czjewel at 1:21 PM on October 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

I hate the “Chinese restaurant” fonts, largely because they are supposed to “resemble brushstrokes” without doing anything of the sort. I suppose you could design a font that looks like Roman characters made with an Asian brush technique, but… why?

In other news, there is a war memorial in New York State where the Korean War plinth is topped with “Korean War” in… yes, *that* font. WtF?!
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:57 PM on October 8, 2023

To expand… they are not only racist, but stupid and unaesthetic and racist.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:18 PM on October 8, 2023 [4 favorites]

Ah the Ocktoberhaus reference...I personally adore the kitchy Alpine design elements, having spent my 20 and 21st year in Nurnberg. House trim and shutters with hearts cut out, flowering vines, stags, and pretzels, lots of pretzels.

If you like kitschy Alpine motifs, you would love Leavenworth, Washington.All the kitsch, plus all the bridal parties.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:33 PM on October 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

2N2222: "And I have no idea what kind of design that could possibly speak to Latin America broadly."

The point, as I see it, as that no design can 'speak to Latin America broadly', because Latin America is incredibly varied and diverse. It's like asking for a design that speaks to the Anglosphere as a whole, for example.
posted by signal at 6:27 PM on October 8, 2023 [5 favorites]

There's a font called Taco Fiesta!?!
posted by medusa at 7:14 PM on October 8, 2023

"White" is a poor descriptor for this conversation, as there are roughly 47 million white Hispanic people running around

This is...kind of a fraught topic, and there's not really consensus around whether white Hispanic is a category that actually exists as anything other than a shitty census category and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, because Mexico demanded its citizens be treated with equality, which because the US was racist meant that they had to be legally treated as white whether they were or not.
posted by corb at 7:25 PM on October 8, 2023

This is...kind of a fraught topic, and there's not really consensus around whether white Hispanic is a category that actually exists as anything other than a shitty census category and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, because Mexico demanded its citizens be treated with equality, which because the US was racist meant that they had to be legally treated as white whether they were or not.

?? I know lots of white hispanic people, most of whom do not participate in the U.S. census. I'm one of them. Much of my family (though some of my family participate in the U.S. census). Latin America is full of people descended from Europeans (and other continents).
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:49 PM on October 8, 2023 [4 favorites]

The point, as I see it, as that no design can 'speak to Latin America broadly', because Latin America is incredibly varied and diverse.

Yes, that's pretty much what I said. I'd be surprised if handing over design to an artist of Latin American heritage fixes the issues brought up. Lots of people will not be represented regardless who performs the task.

I'm not sure the point is that they're suited to Latin America as much as that they were created and widely used there. A lot of original fonts were created there but the only ones we recognize are the "Fiesta" related ones -- this seems like an attempt to address that.

It seems to me that where they're created is irrelevant. What matters is that they're suited for their purpose. Like I said earlier, I'm not a person who is knowledgeable about design. I'm getting the feeling that arguments about things like fonts taps into a whole lotta sense-of-propriety among professionals and aficionados who take such things seriously. Everyone else kind of just does the "what are you talking about?" shrug thing. What kind of person is aware of where a font is created, after all?

It must also be kept in mind that many of these designs and fonts are going to be used mostly, if not solely, for English language promotion, to English speaking people.

This gets pretty confused, as any kind of "Hispanic Heritage" celebration is going to encompass all kinds of languages and skin colors and cultures, and even ones that are arguably not even Hispanic in any way.
posted by 2N2222 at 8:53 PM on October 8, 2023 [2 favorites]

medusa, on dafont.com you will find Taco Fiesta, Taco Box, Taco Salad, Tacos de Tijuana and half a dozen more taco fonts.
posted by zadcat at 8:55 PM on October 8, 2023

I thought the article came off as having shades of 1980s assimilation vibes. Look, P.F. Chang's doesn't use brushstroke fonts - if you can manage to be culturally rooted without being cliche, maybe you can be a model minority, or even white-passing!

I'm honestly kind of aghast at many of the replies too, but I also don't think it's my place to speak out, being of Irish descent residing in the northeast US for all but two years of my life. My old boss, who has strong Latino and Native American heritage, once commented on the topic of "authentic Mexican food" as it came up at work, saying that the tacos that he grew up with weren't all that different from Taco Bell. Turns out just Mexico alone is a huge country with a lot of diversity - before even expanding further into Latin America - and it was always weird for him hearing white people talking about what is or isn't authentic Mexican.
posted by Leviathant at 9:02 PM on October 8, 2023

It must also be kept in mind that many of these designs and fonts are going to be used mostly, if not solely, for English language promotion, to English speaking people.

I've been doing font identification on several forums for years. We see font samples of all kinds in so many languages. Use of inventive faux fonts is by no means restricted to the anglosphere.
posted by zadcat at 9:06 PM on October 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

"White" is a poor descriptor for this conversation, as there are roughly 47 million white Hispanic people running around.

Definitely, Tell Me No Lies. I meant Southern California, US Non-hispanic White if that helps clarify my comment in particular. I'm speaking as a citizen of the United States.

This thread has been stewing in my brain all day -- mostly because of SoberHighland's comment right at the start. I was excited by the article, but not a great start to conversation because it's a White man saying he was forced by Latino women to design something that looks like Taco Bell circa 1985. I know what your going for is more subtle than that, but it feels awfully close to saying you knew better than the 100% Latino people. Taco Bell is a negative description. There's got to be a better way of telling that story.

We lost a lot of PoC voices here around summer of 2019 and I miss their input. I mostly agree with Miranda that the collective graphic representations of Hispanic heritage in the United States is reductive. We're not a nation that's big on nuance. It's a Catch-22 situation because going more specific leaves some groups out and going too generic ends up not representing anyone specifically. Maybe the solution is to make a United States where the wide variety and history of Latino art is taught more generally in schools. A tall order given the poor state of teaching even Euro-American art history here.

I lack the background to talk about fonts specifically. I assume that most designs I see are European or United States in origin. They're the default, so anything from a different culture has to be super stereotypical to stand out as such. I think the best that could be done is to go from super niche discussion of Hispanic font designers to just... niche. Like I agree that stuff like Taco Modern is super cliché and it's an irritating stand in for whole cultures, but we'd have to be swimming in fonts designed by Hispanic people in day-to-day life in order to make it a non-issue. White Americans don't have to give a second thought to fonts reflecting their heritage because they've bought into the homogenizing mirror of a dominant culture that constantly reflects that identity back.
posted by Mister Cheese at 12:56 AM on October 9, 2023

It's telling that even in this thread, a lot of people speak of Latin America as "Mexico + those other places."
Also, popping into a thread about fonts to say "who cares about fonts?" is an option, I guess.
posted by signal at 4:55 AM on October 9, 2023 [1 favorite]

?? I know lots of white hispanic people, most of whom do not participate in the U.S. census. I'm one of them. Much of my family (though some of my family participate in the U.S. census). Latin America is full of people descended from Europeans (and other continents).

I myself am a white-presenting biracial person with a Hispanic mother and agree that Latin America is not a monolith. One of my personal bugbears is the concept that in order to convey that something is "Mexican" or "Latino" etc is that these sorts of fonts and designs are used to give "authenticity" to a diverse culture. I mean, at the end of the day, I consider this use to be geared towards white audiences to fulfill their internalized and fossilized concept of what they think the culture means.

My second bugbear is more personal. The most common response I get when people learn my mom is not white is: "Wow! You don't look Hispanic! I would have never guessed!" I respond with, "Sorry, I left my serape and sombrero at home, I guess."
posted by Kitteh at 5:24 AM on October 9, 2023 [3 favorites]

After 10 years of “Wow! You don’t look Mexican!” was “Wow! You don’t look racist!”. One gets tired of giving the Latin American History 101 lecture all the time.

Back to fonts, it is all about it coming from inside or outside the house. When I was still a graphic designer in Mexico, as a Mexican, I had a pretty decent sensibility for what would and would not fly based on the context. I did several flyers and party invitations using vernacular fonts and color schemes. Lucha libre inspired with the silkscreen gradient in bright colors background printed on cheap Papel Revolución for parties with for Mexican electronic music parties (Mexican as in the identity of the artists, not as a genre). Hiring actual rotulistas to make rótulo style menus for restaurants, working with a retablista to make a tongue in cheek retablo invitation for a 50 year wedding anniversary party (Doy gracias a todos los Santos y Mártires…). I also made tons of work using all kinds of fonts from around the world, including another wedding anniversary party invitation in fancy embossed metallic foil cursive on thick creamy paper.

It works because everyone involved has seen these fonts and styles in their natural element, and this context they don’t signify “Mexican” or “Latino”, they signify what can be expected of the event, place, product. My own wedding we served tacos de guisado and street food snacks, and made sure that all the graphic design communicated this clearly.

I would never attempt to do the same for an Argentinian or Peruvian client. I have no idea of the connotations a particular style could have there. If forced to do so, I would take a look at what contemporary designers there are doing to get awards and recognition, and go from there. It is easier to justify trying to be avant-garde than trying to capture the essence of a whole fucking culture.

So yeah, if a bunch of Latin designers are saying that some don’t is cool or not, probably it is or not..
posted by Dr. Curare at 6:19 AM on October 9, 2023 [10 favorites]

sometimes minority communities embrace some of that kitsch themselves.

Lots of people love Comic Sans. Lots of people love kitsch in every community.

But I'm always down for people saying, "Hey look, here's something better than kitsch." Those fonts Aguas and Cemita rule.
posted by straight at 6:44 PM on October 9, 2023

It seems to me that where they're created is irrelevant. What matters is that they're suited for their purpose. Like I said earlier, I'm not a person who is knowledgeable about design. I'm getting the feeling that arguments about things like fonts taps into a whole lotta sense-of-propriety among professionals and aficionados who take such things seriously. Everyone else kind of just does the "what are you talking about?" shrug thing. What kind of person is aware of where a font is created, after all?

Yes, it seems to have as much to do with class and politics as with ethnicity.

And for what it's worth, I didn't in any way take SoberHighland's comment as suggesting that he "knew better" than the Latino clients he was designing for. Just the opposite, in fact.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 7:37 PM on October 10, 2023 [1 favorite]