Mauricio Garza’s composed, horror vacui-embracing identity for Ardo is both eccentric and accessible

Drawing on the miscellaneous interests, interiors and objects that inhabit Querétaro’s Ardo, Mexico City-based creative Mauricio Garza’s identity for the café, bar and restaurant captures an acute, semi-kitsch tone. Typography and decoration-led in its approach, Garza tells us that “the eclectic personality of the client needed some patterns to calm his horror vacui,” referring to the artistic reference similar to kenophobia – from the Greek ‘fear of the empty.’ “So, we came up with a bunch of patterns that I like to call ‘Friedeberg’s Diner,’” Garza continues, pairing Ardo’s theatrical use of graphic patterns with a similarly lucid choice of typefaces. 

Leading with Masahiro Naruse’s Falling Script for Ardo’s wordmark, alongside Out of the Dark’s ToY and Montserrat by Google Fonts, Garza recalls how the typographic choices found direct inspiration from the café’s physical space. “My client was showing me around during the remodelling of the restaurant,” he explains, “and in the front face of the building, there’s this cute little vertical spot,” a site Garza saw as a prime location for a logomark. “The rest of the system uses a classic combination with a twist,” he suggests, “an eccentric and over-the-top serif, with a delicate sans,” combined to create something eccentric yet accessible. A tone likewise struck in the brand’s colour choices. “The restaurant has an intimate-low-light vibe,” Garza concludes, “so we needed bright colours for the stationery; to make them pop!”

Mauricio Garza

Ardo