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When my co-founder, Christina, and I launched Stina + George, we promised ourselves we’d build tactile, narrative-driven brands—meaning, we wanted our work to feel real, soulful, and distinctly human. however, I quickly realized I was breaking that promise from the comfort of my laptop. Sourcing inspiration from the algorithmic echo chamber of Pinterest felt like working in a digital copy-and-paste factory. I needed to get off the internet.
So, I started to travel. (Or at least, that’s the neat, studio-approved version of why I packed my bags.)
I spent a few years living out of a suitcase, navigating everything from budget stays to luxury resorts. After a blur of countries, cities, mountain towns, beach towns, destination weddings, and family vacations I kept finding myself booking yet another ticket back to Mexico City just to rest and create until I finally just unpacked for good.
I came for Mexico City's creative richness, but I stayed to explore the vibrant, distictly unique pueblos and diverse landscapes surrounding it.
Every corner of this country is shaped by human touch—from raw architectural textures and hand-painted signage to ancestral crafts—all held together by a culture of profound warmth and hospitality.
As a design studio we look at both form and function. To design for the food & travel industry, you have to understand it from the ground up. Hospitality is an ecosystem of distinct price points, demographic expectations, and spatial functions. The real challenge is ensuring the brand interfaces with guests seamlessly.
My travels around Mexico forced me to analyze how to execute luxury, community, and utility across this entire spectrum:
HIGH-END LUXURY Focus: Flawless materiality, hyper-exclusivity, sense of place
BOUTIQUE CONCEPT Focus: Curated narrative, high-concept aesthetics, emotional hook
ACCESSIBLE / ECO Focus: Resource efficiency, raw vernacular, communal connection
Beyond hotel operations, moving here allowed me to see how climate, food, history, and craft dictate regional visual identity. Every new place I visit continues to rewrite how I think about color palettes, typography, and texture in our studio work.
Oaxaca City is unfussy, honest, and anchored to the earth. In nearby villages like Teotitlán del Valle, artisans spend months weaving geometric narratives on pedal and backstrap looms. They use cochineal insects, wild pecan leaves, and marigolds to dye wool into deep crimsons, rich ochres, and indigo blues.
This connection to the land carries into the city's architecture and culinary institutions. Criollo, a farm-to-table restaurant tucked away in a renovated colonial home in the Centro sector, has no set menu; the food changes daily based on the harvest. The design mirrors this hyper-local philosophy with raw polished concrete, native timbers, an open-air gravel courtyard, and chickens roaming freely near the comal, creating a slow-paced dialogue between traditional Oaxacan ingredients and contemporary, stripped-back aesthetics.
Further south in Chiapas, particularly San Cristóbal de las Casas, the climate demands warmth: deep red and saffron-yellow adobe walls, stone interiors, and heavy textiles that tell generational stories through geometry. You see these traditions in the streets as Tzotzil women walk past in shaggy, black sheep's wool skirts and hand-woven blouses with bursts of neon florals. Woven on traditional backstrap looms, their attire is a testament to cultural resilience, identity, and a mastery of color and contrast.
Living in CDMX, I am in the epicenter of contemporary Latin American design. Roma, Condesa, and Juárez present a collage of adaptive reuse: historic colonial mansions converted into modern showrooms and galleries.
Design here is defined by bold experimentation, combining industrial elements like raw aluminum or brutalist forms with unexpected bursts of local craftsmanship, history, and whimsy—folk-art ceramics, surrealist alebrijes, plastic-raffia woven chairs, or detailed terrazzo tile floors that have survived four major earthquakes. The inspiration is everyday: graffiti, weathered hand-painted signage, or a Baroque door knocker. "Surprise and delight" is our primary ethos at Stina + George, and Mexico City embodies it entirely.
Three years into making Mexico my home, I am still struck by how seamlessly true art and craftsmanship are woven into the fabric of daily life. great design cannot be mass-produced. Whether we are building a brand identity for a boutique hospitality group or considering how the menu and signage will live in a local restaurant space, the answers are always found in the local context. a luxurious experience isn't a guilded facade, but is conveyed by how deeply a brand connects to the food, the soil, the history, and the hands of the people who built it.
