When Original Artwork Becomes Part Of A Brand

Feb 25

How an original art commission for El Mesón Sandwiches evolved into a visual language spanning architecture, packaging, promotions and new customer experiences.

Around 2015, Candela Creative Group® received an unusual call from the marketing team at El Mesón Sandwiches.

They weren't looking for a new logo. They weren't asking for a restaurant redesign or a new advertising campaign.

They wanted original artwork.

The team had seen an abstract painting in Europe that stayed with them and imagined creating something with a similar artistic presence for their restaurants—something contemporary and expressive, but unmistakably their own.

They came to us after seeing work we had created for museums, educational institutions and the University of Puerto Rico, where illustration, environmental design and storytelling often intersect.

What began as an art commission would eventually become something neither of us had fully anticipated: a visual language that continues to evolve with El Mesón more than a decade later.

WORKING WITH A BRAND THAT ALREADY HAS HISTORY

El Mesón isn't a brand that needed a story invented for it.

The company began in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, in 1972, when founder Felipe Pérez opened a small restaurant serving breakfasts, coffee and sandwiches. Fifteen years later, its second restaurant opened at Mayagüez Mall. Over the decades, El Mesón grew into one of Puerto Rico's most recognized restaurant companies and eventually expanded into Florida. Today, the company describes its footprint as more than 40 restaurants. Meson Sandwiches

By the time we became involved, generations of customers already recognized its logo, restaurants, colors and food.

That history mattered.

There were aspects of the identity we believed could evolve, but a rebrand wasn't what the family wanted—and it wasn't what we had been hired to do. The existing identity represented decades of recognition and a multigenerational business.

So instead of replacing it, we looked for a way to add to it.

That distinction became fundamental to the project.

FINDING A NEW VISUAL TERRITORY

At the time, much of El Mesón's established visual environment relied on browns, black, yellow and other warm tones. The artwork gave us an opportunity to introduce a different chromatic presence without changing the core identity.

Blue became an important part of that new territory.

We also looked at visual elements that already existed within the restaurants, including patterns found in their tilework. Rather than reproducing those motifs literally, we fragmented and abstracted them, building layers of color, texture, shadows and shapes.

The intention was deliberately not folkloric.

El Mesón is deeply Puerto Rican because of where it comes from and the history it carries. It didn't need a collection of obvious cultural symbols to establish that connection. The client wanted something abstract, contemporary and artistic.

So the relationship to the brand had to happen in a quieter way.

Some references are so quiet that most customers may never notice them. Hidden within one of the patterns, for example, is a cross incorporated at the family's request—a personal reference to their faith, intended to be part of the artwork without defining it.

Those details became part of a composition that could feel abstract from a distance while revealing considerably more when experienced up close.

Frente-mural-meson-SanGerman.jpg-out-01.jpg

ILLUSTRATING A HISTORY

As the artwork developed, another opportunity emerged.

El Mesón had a remarkable history to tell.

From its beginnings in Aguadilla in 1972, the company had grown through a series of restaurants and architectural moments that customers and employees recognized as part of its evolution.

We began drawing them.

Selected restaurants, dates and milestones became illustrations layered into the artwork, transforming what could have remained purely abstract into something more particular to El Mesón.

The challenge wasn't to document everything. It was to determine which moments could carry the story.

Architecture became especially useful. An illustrated building could represent a location, a period of growth and a memory simultaneously. Dates provided a subtle chronology, while the surrounding abstraction prevented the artwork from becoming a conventional corporate timeline.

From across a restaurant, it could still be experienced simply as art.

Look closer, and the company's history begins to appear.

A TIMELINE THAT ISN'T FINISHED

One of the most interesting things about the project is something we couldn't have planned when we created the first artwork:

El Mesón kept growing.

The company opened its first Florida restaurant at the Florida Mall in Orlando in 2015 and continued expanding its presence in Central Florida. Meson Sandwiches

As new restaurants have opened, new architecture has had the opportunity to become part of the illustration. We have continued drawing selected buildings and incorporating them into updated compositions.

Not every location can appear in every mural, nor should it. The objective isn't to create an exhaustive map.

It is an evolving visual history.

In that sense, the timeline was never really completed.

The company continues writing it.

El Meson featuring several locations in Puerto Rico and Florida

WHEN THE ARTWORK MOVED BEYOND THE WALL

As the illustration became part of the restaurant environment, elements of it also began finding their way into other expressions of the brand.

The abstracted tile patterns, illustrated timeline and expanded color palette have inspired applications across packaging—including bags and cups—as well as advertising and promotional pieces, particularly for holidays, anniversaries and special events.

This was an important evolution because the original artwork had never been conceived as a new identity system. Yet over time, it provided El Mesón with a broader visual vocabulary that could complement its established brand.

Color became part of that evolution.

Much of the visual communication we encountered when we first began working together was grounded in a concentrated palette of black, brown, yellow and red. The blues and additional hues developed through the artwork gave us opportunities to introduce more range into selected promotions while maintaining a relationship with the existing identity.

Sometimes that connection is direct, incorporating portions of the abstract patterns or elements of the illustrated history. Other times, it is simply the freedom to introduce a different combination of color, texture and layering.

The intention was never to replace the established visual language.

It was to give it more room to speak.

UCF Knight selfie wall illustrated by Candela Creative Group for El Mesón Sandwiches Lee Vista restaurant in Orlando, Florida.

DESIGNING FOR THE COMMUNITY AROUND THE RESTAURANT

Not every location needs to tell exactly the same story.

For El Mesón’s Lee Vista restaurant in Orlando, proximity to the University of Central Florida presented an opportunity to create something specifically for the community surrounding that location.

Candela Creative Group® was commissioned to develop an original illustrated selfie wall featuring the UCF Knight—integrating the university connection into the visual world we had already established for El Mesón.

The piece was designed to do more than decorate the restaurant. It created a destination within the space: a place where students, alumni and guests could photograph themselves, share the experience and document their visit to El Mesón.

The illustration sits against the familiar layered blue artwork, but introduces a completely site-specific character and message. Rather than asking the entire restaurant system to change, one moment within it was allowed to belong specifically to Lee Vista and its audience.

For a multi-location restaurant brand, we think that distinction matters.

Consistency builds recognition. Local relevance creates connection.

For the image

This photograph is exactly the image I would use directly beneath the section because it demonstrates the concept in use rather than merely showing the finished wall. Someone is actually taking the selfie the artwork was designed to encourage.

THE SAME ARTWORK SHOULD NOT MEAN THE SAME WALL

El Mesón began incorporating the artwork into additional restaurants, simply reproducing the original mural would have been the easiest solution.

It also would have been the wrong one.

Restaurant architecture changes dramatically from location to location. A long focal wall in one restaurant may become a narrow vertical surface in another. Windows, entrances, furniture, ceiling conditions, circulation and viewing distances all affect how artwork is experienced.

So each new application requires us to return to the composition.

The historical elements may remain recognizable, but the layers around them are adjusted. Shapes move. Color relationships change. Shadows are rebuilt. Portions become more or less prominent according to the architecture.

We have adapted the work for locations including Mayagüez, San Patricio, Aguadilla, San Germán, Sábalos and multiple restaurants in Florida, among others.

The objective isn't identical reproduction.

It is continuity without sameness.

That principle is essential when designing for multi-location brands. A system has to be recognizable enough to belong to the same company while remaining flexible enough to respond intelligently to different environments.

DESIGN DOESN'T END WITH THE FILE

Working at architectural scale has also taught us how easily good artwork can be compromised during production.

A printing process can shift a blue dramatically. A glossy material can completely change the character of artwork intended to have a matte, layered quality. Improper scaling can distort an illustration that was carefully composed for a particular wall.

Those aren't simply production problems.

They affect the design.

For some installations, achieving the intended color has required dozens of physical tests before approving final production.

Whenever possible, we remain involved through that process—reviewing proofs, communicating with fabricators, testing color, checking materials and overseeing installation.

Because the digital file isn't what the customer ultimately experiences.

The wall is.

Illustration and color tests by Candela Creative Group for El Mesón Sandwiches restaurant in Orlando, Florida.

ALLOWING THE SYSTEM TO EVOLVE

More than a decade after the original commission, El Mesón's restaurants continue changing.

The relationship has evolved with them.

More recently, Candela Creative Group® was asked to design the environmental graphics and signage surrounding the brand's self-order kiosk areas. The kiosk equipment itself is supplied separately; our role is to make the area it occupies feel intentional within the restaurant environment.

We developed a detailed production style guide establishing dimensions, materials, Pantone specifications, signage and approved configurations so the system could be implemented consistently across different locations and production teams.

Once again, architecture required flexibility.

Some restaurants call for a restrained white-wall configuration. Others allow the layered blue artwork to become a stronger part of the kiosk environment.

The result isn't one fixed design that has to be forced into every restaurant.

It is a controlled family of solutions.

The technology is new.

The principle behind designing for it is not.

El Mesón Sandwiches Lake Nona restaurant in Orlando, Florida.

WHEN ARTWORK BECOMES SOMETHING MORE

There is one measure of this project's success that was never part of the original brief.

Over the years, we've noticed that when members of El Mesón's ownership or leadership are photographed or interviewed inside the restaurants, they frequently choose the mural as their backdrop.

We notice it because we remember when that wall was nothing more than artwork on our screens.

The mural was originally commissioned to represent the brand.

Somewhere along the way, it became a place where the people behind the brand chose to represent themselves.

For us, that may be the most meaningful outcome of the project.

Not every established brand needs to be reinvented.

Sometimes the opportunity is to understand what already has meaning, recognize what is missing, and create something new that can live alongside it.

And if that new piece is designed with enough depth and flexibility, it may continue finding new purposes long after the original assignment is complete.