COMERCIAL MEXICANA

 

In 1983 I resigned from Rion & Esquerro because my wife and I decided to leave Mexico City and head for the provinces, specifically Michoacán.

 

Fernando Rión approached me one morning before I left and asked me to “quickly” work on a symbol or “Isotype” for a Supermarket Chain; Comercial Mexicana that was looking to redesign their brand sometime in the future”.

 

From scratch, and in a morning's time, I came up with the images (whose evolution can be seen here on the top level of diagrams).

 

Because the Supermarket had always used a Pelican as their "symbol" and which represented abundance, I went for a simple bird with an enormous beak. 

 

However, the resulting simple image (top left) was somewhat “unbalanced”. (Birds are a lot more elegant flying). I felt that – on one hand, that it could not stand on it’s own that it needed something to “frame” it.

 

On the other hand making that simple image “attractive” was going to take a bit of time – which I didn't have.

 

So, to consolidate the image as something different, unique, original, I decided to add a “frame” element.  I first tried a circle, (top, second from left) without much luck, then a square, still without luck . . . then finally a square the round corners. (top, third from left)

 

This last solution was great except that the beak was not fitting. It was then that I decided to leave a square corner for the bird’s beak . . . !  (top right)

 

From this evolution we can observe then that the actual tear shaped frame was not a preconceived concept but more of a serendipitous result achieved through a working visual research discipline.

 

That final concept – even though very raw - convinced me that it had the makings of something great and that's the concept I handed to Fernando.

 

I was surprised to see a very polished version of this concept on the facade of a Supermarket many years later when living in Cancún. It was a winner after all. Rafael Trevino, a now famous designer, was the artist who polished the idea and did a really good job.

 

I wasn’t surprised to see (later in design media) that I not been given any credit for my concept as during all my years with that company my name almost never popped up anywhere near my designs (maybe once in a blue moon) – it was always “Rion & Esquerro”. I think this policy changed in the new "Rediseño" era as Rafael Treviño was given the credit . . .