The Reina Rebelde color cosmetics brand was born out of founder Regina Merson’s passion for makeup and extreme pride in her cultural identity as a Mexican woman… a Latina.

The exquisite and ambitious demographic embodies a powerful cultural duality by expressing beauty on many levels. The Reina Rebelde (Rebel Queen) is blessed with many choices: She speaks English and Spanish. She loves being Latina and Americana.

She celebrates the beauty and mystery of her Reina and fierceness and grit of her Rebelde. She embraces her duality and has always understood the power of the perfect shade of lipstick.

Reina Rebelde’s products, branding, design and communication are creative combinations of wild and unpredictable, bold and impractical, feminine and luxurious, sexy and severe—perfectly reflecting this complicated demographic.

Reina created the products with built-in versatility to further express this duality: provocative shades that deliver boldness, passion and long wear. All the products were designed to be multifunctional, multi-use, with high pigment loads and staying power.

Striving for Authenticity

Creating the branding and package design for a brand with such a rich cultural background was both thought-provoking and challenging. Reina provided The Design Spot with an incredibly detailed reference book based on her years of research and love of her Mexican culture.

It was now our task to embrace and live with this culture in order to glean specific details that would make sense and help us create the design for this color cosmetics line that would be sold in the U.S., but for a Latina consumer. We needed to capture the “duality” of the Latina. We needed to convey both the Reina (Queen) and the Rebelde (Rebel) in the packaging design. It needed to tell a story, but be hip, chic and edgy. It needed to be rich and beautiful with a big nod to the Mexican culture. Each and every element is a piece of the puzzle we created, starting with the logo, which is an ambigram… not to be confused with an anagram.

The Reina Rebelde logo magically, can be read even when turned upside down. The approach to the logo was both in recognition of the tattoo culture of yesterday and today with a hint of Rebel mixed in for good measure. We needed a logo that could represent the duality in a unique way and also be used both vertically and horizontally.

We chose simple matte black components as the canvas for our artwork. The design that Regina selected was based on a vintage pin-up girl tattoo style. We wanted to add authenticity whenever possible so we engaged a Mexican tattoo artist from East LA to illustrate our “Chica” (as we call her).

Another nod to Mexican culture are the Milagros. These tiny charms or talisman are intended to create miracles and are carried for good luck and protection. By illustrating the symbol of the charms in a modern tattoo style, we were able to use these icons to mark each of the categories in the line. And the Chica herself is covered in these “milagro tattoos.”

The cartons are matte black with a UV gloss pattern of butterflies and skulls that look like lace. The box opens to reveal a bright, colorful rose pattern, also very Mexican for both religious and cultural reasons. The duality is carried throughout all of the branding, with all of the shade names in Spanish and the product names in English.

The line currently consists of 27 products with more already in the works. Although the spirit of the line was born for Latinas, it’s a line of makeup that everyone wants; it is truly asombroso!

About the authors:

Glyn Eppy is a principal at The Design Spot, an award-winning design and branding studio. The Reina Rebelde line received a Graphic Design USA Award. thedesignspot.com

Karen Young is CEO of The Young Group.