HOW I BUILT
⁺₊✧ SANTA CATRINA ✧₊⁺
BEYOND JUST A WINE LABEL

∘˚₊ ⋆༺𓆩✞︎☠︎✞︎︎𓆪༻⋆ ₊˚∘

Emotional branding wins over trends.
Building branded universes unlocks long-term growth:
merch, collabs, evolving characters, and deeper brand equity.

⁺₊✧ Pixels with purpose ✧₊⁺
4/6/2025

Why I Created the Santa Catrina Cabernet Sauvignon Brand

Introducing "Santa Catrina Cabernet Sauvignon", A unique blend of Booze and boos inspired by Mexican heritage & deep roots revolving around "Dia de los Muertos." I was looking to create a heritage brand to make branding content on linkedin. While making the brand, I decided to make an ad for it as well! In the end, I forgot about making the Linkedin posts cuz I got so distracted making this video. That's how the Santa Catrina brand was born! What started as a LinkedIn content idea evolved into a full brand universe!

Creating Santa Catrina was never about virality, it was about experimenting with brand identity through design, storytelling, and culture representation in a way that felt personal yet professional. Instead of just making an ad, I decided I should build a world for the Santa Catrina brand.

THE ARTISTIC PROCESS BEHIND THE PIXELS

Behind-the-scenes clay render of Santa Catrina 3D animation showing a skeleton inside a boiling pot as a sacrifice to the lightning deity Tlaloc, with untextured world and characters

Final render of Santa Catrina 3D animation showing a skeleton inside a boiling pot as a sacrifice to the lightning deity Tlaloc, with full textures and lighting

Why create a world for a short ad?!

Because emotional branding matters.

Santa Catrina brand is built on emotional branding because those are the type of brands that have caught my own attention. The characters, lore, & storytelling aren’t just for show. When you create a world for your brand it can make people feel something... & That feeling... is what sticks with them. This feeling cannot be achieved by talking about the "benefits" of products. Feelings stick around wayy longer than a list of benefits ever could.

Brands only mean something when you can connect it to a narrative. Santa Catrina represents mystery, beauty, death, and rebirth, all infused with cultural representation.

From the elegance of Santa Catrina's design to the symbolism behind her presence & entrance. My aim was evoking feelings not a list of features or stats.

That's how you make sure your brand withstands the test of time!

According to
-Nexus The Motherfucken Hue ,

Going beyond the feed!

This all started cuz I was trynna make a LinkedIn post. Along the way, it turned into a story. No longer just content for engagement, it became a brand with a soul. Something people could return to, talk about, hopefully even anticipate a new drop each year!

Chasing trends can lock you in time, but building a branded universe creates long-term potential

★ Merchandise
★ Collaborations
★ Evolving characters
★ Expanding intellectual property (IP)

That's how you start building real brand equity. I'm sure that If I had just used a trend it wouldn't feel the same. Trends feel too dated, it locks you into a time period and the high volume makes people tired of seeing it after a while even if the algorithm is still pushing the content.

Doing it this way allows me to go beyond just a video , there's potential for the IP, Santa Catrina could expand into merch and collabs. The kind of branding that grows along with your audience. Characters you can revisit, evolve, merchandise, and more importantly build upon. These characters are based off combinations of real people, but eventually they can turn into full independent identities the more I build upon them.

Visuals Breakdown

The Logo & Branding:

Designed under the Nexus★Hue umbrella , the Santa Catrina logo draws from gothic elegance, and Mexican symbolism day of the dead, spiritual and powerful. It's more than a badge, It’s a seal of myth and memory.

This brand identity wasn’t designed as a one-off thing. It can be scaled. From packaging to merch & digital experiences. The logo is designed to adapt in different environments. It works well for social media apps because the design is compact and elegant. Making it stand out but also easy to recognize even on mobile phones! High-concept high-function type shih that works across a whole lotta mediums.

Manga-style panel depicting the origin story of Santa Catrina, combining La Santa Muerte and La Catrina, with the gods Quetzalcoatl and Tlaloc as the inspiration for Santa Catrina's creation

La Santa Catrina as a Deity:

Santa Catrina is instantly recognizable. From her Mexican flag-inspired dress to her throne made out of bones and her mariachi guardians. BOLD visuals rooted in culture, and hella stylized. That kind of aesthetic is what separates Santa CAtrina from “just another wine label” and turns it into a movement! La Santa Catrina is not just La Catrina or La Santa Muerte. Santa Catrina is the birth of a fusion between the two entities! Her look incorporates the elegance of La Catrina, the spiritual reverence of La Santa Muerte, and the colors that represent the Mexico. She’s a new goddess born from ancient traditions.

The Origin Story:

In the promo, Aztec gods Tláloc (rain, fertility) and Quetzalcoatl (creation, knowledge) perform a human sacrifice to bring Santa Catrina to life. It’s mythic, dramatic, and rooted in Mesoamerican cosmology. Tláloc’s starts the ritual by striking the sacrifice with THE pink lightning. This is inspired by the Maya and Aztec ceremonial practices were they often adorn the sacrifice in gold before sending them off.

Photos inside panels showcasing the influence of Mariachi culture and the Cora people, with temple-inspired set designs, comparing the real-world inspirations to the version created for Santa Catrina

The Mariachi Guardians:

The mariachi clothes are Inspired by traditional "traje de charro" outfits from Guadalajara! This is where my grandma's sid eof the family is originally from. I re-imagined them using Nexus★Hue colors and branding. They're not just background characters, they’re the bridge between the old world and the underworld. Calling to Santa Catrina with a tune to roam the earth once more!

The Cora Influence:

Santa Catrina’s attendants are based on the traditional clothing of the Cora people! An Indigenous group from Tepic Nayarit. Their clothing, embroidery, and symbolism bring authenticity and diversity to the world I’m building. I decided to incorporate them because I lived in Tepic Nayarit with my grandparents when I was younger and actually wore the outfit a couple times lol. Every part of the brand is almost like an extension of myself.

Temple-Inspired Set Design:

The set is heavily influenced by Maya temples and architecture. I used statues of deities like Quetzalcoatl and Tláloc. A sacred, space where the living and the dead collide, the perfect birthplace for Santa Catrina. They are neither in the future nor the past, somewhere between the two timelines

Scaling the Santa Catrina Brand

Santa Catrina is technically my second brand under the Nexus★Hue umbrella. The logo and brand needed to play well within the Nexus★Hue universe. Carrying the soul of Nexus★Hue, while standing on its own as a new brand!

Ready to build a brand universe that sets you apart?
Let’s create something scalable, memorable, and unmistakably yours.

CLICK HERE TO CONTACT NEXUS★HUE