Naming | Logo Identity | Branding | Illustration | Hand-drawn typography
Maize Wear is a clothing company that focuses on preserving the Maya culture through fabric. Inspired by the Maya culture and their inscriptions, Maize Wear is a brand clothing company in Guatemala that primary focuses on bringing back the Maya culture to the contemporary nation. The goal of the brand is to design contemporary clothing such as t-shirts, hoodies, and accessories such as caps, bandanas, as well as skateboard decks. By doing this, Maize Wear hopes to bring the Hip Hop and skateboarding cultures together and create a movement where teenagers would want to wear these types of clothing and rock them through the use of illustrations influenced by the Maya’s inscriptions and culture.The name was inspired by one of the Maya identities, the tonsured Maize Identity. He is the patron identity of the scribal arts, dancing, & feasting. Thus, the identity was a great way to connect the mission of the company to the 4 elements of the Hip Hop culture: Mcing, Djing, Breakdancing, & Graffiti.
Sketching the symbol
Extensive research shaped both the brand's name and identity design.
More sketches exploring Maya inscription styles, to bring Maize Wear’s visual identity to life.
Exploring different lockups, hierarchies, styles, positioning, and line weights to arrive at the final logo identity.
Jade for the roots. Gold for the reign.
Long before gold, jade was the stone that mattered most in Maya civilization — the color of maize, water, and life itself. Gold entered later, carrying the weight of the sun and status. Maize Wear pulls both into one palette: jade to stay grounded in where the culture comes from, gold to speak the same language as Hip Hop's love of shine, flex, and self-made status. It's a palette built on Maya reverence and Hip Hop swagger — ancestral on one side and aspirational on the other.
