Steep, lush mountains surrounded us all in all directions, their summits unknown as the tops disappeared into the clouds. We drove through miles of terraced coffee farms, interspersed with banana trees. Banana trees offer coffee plants sombra or shade. Shade-grown coffee plants provide environmental benefits in contrast to their unshaded monoculture counterparts. These small-scale, high-altitude, sustainability-focused coffee producers are part of a bold plan for economic revival in Guatemala, and I have travelled here to support them through graphic design.

At the end of a winding dirt road, my client and I arrived for a business meeting at a coffee farm owned by an Indigenous family deep in the heart of the Guatemalan Cuchamantes mountains. From a small brick home, women emerged carrying stacking chairs which were promptly arranged in a semi-circle around my client and me. As their attention focused, I became the object of their curiosity: a tall, white, bug-bite-ridden foreigner who smiled too much.

More curiosity arose when the extraño asked the strangest of questions, “What is the meaning of the colors and symbols on your garments? What plants do you rely on? Tell me more about the birds in your region.” I imagined the Mam (indigenous Mayan) families thinking, “She came all this way just to ask us about our pants?”

My packaging design solution for a new coffee brand.

Mam farm families in the Cuchamantes mountains of Guatemala and me.

Well, yeah. I was visiting a rural community in the Mayan highlands, as part of an assignment with USAID’s Partners of the Americas, Farmer-to-Farmer program. This program matches volunteers from the U.S. with agricultural partners in countries like Guatemala to train locals on organic farming practices and how to prepare products for a local and global market. They are teaching business skills as well as how to get the most fruitful harvest. As a graphic designer, I entered the process after these small farm producers have a viable product that is processed and ready to launch. My job was to create a compelling brand identity and packaging design for these products. For this assignment in Guatemala, I was tasked with creating a new brand design for three different coffee products and one honey product. With two weeks to start and complete the project, this was no small task.

The Mayan communities in the mountains surrounding the village of Todos Santos in Huehuetenango, Guatemala mostly consist of the Mam people. The Mam people are one of nine Indigenous ethnic groups in this department alone, each with their own language, traditions, and dress. These groups outnumber the Spanish-speaking, non-Indigenous, Ladino population in this region, and the poverty rate hovers around 70%. Lack of economic opportunity, hunger caused by drought and the presence of drug gangs is part of what drives the massive upswell of Northern migration that is prolific from Huehuetenango.

Selvin Carrillo from Partners of the Americas samples coffee from Guatemala producer, ACODIHUE.

Can coffee solve the migrant crisis? My client, ACODIHUE, thinks paying young people fair wages for agricultural work, and developing their entrepreneurial skills offers a more attractive option to those who might otherwise migrate for opportunities. Home to the greatest number of “Northern Triangle” refugees, Huehuetenango is also one of the richest coffee regions due to the high altitude of the Cuchamantes mountains. Organizations like USAID’s Farmer-to-Farmer program and ACODIHUE see this as an opportunity. Farmer-to-Farmer focuses on direct partnerships with foreign agricultural organizations (like ACODIHUE) to activate the economy and produce the high end products. Aid programs like these promote a win-win for coffee drinkers and for the next generation of Guatemalan farmers.

Left to right: Selvin Carrillo from Partners of the Americas, Melissa Delzio, designer & Farmer-to-Farmer volunteer, and Luisa Tovar from the ACODIHUE agricultural association.

My client, ACODIHUE, offers training and fair wages for Indigenous people, equal opportunities for women, and social services. ACODIHUE is an agricultural association funded in part by the United Nations with the goal of supporting these small farmers. They specifically work with coffee and honey producers in the mountains of the department of Huehuetenango, where the scene of this formal, multi-lingual Q&A was about to take place.

As an outsider, it is vital that I learn the visual language of the region, its people and landscape so that the design can be reflective of the place. Our visit to the farm was the last of several inspirational outings I undertook after being fully briefed on the graphic needs, product qualities and desired audience demographics of the products. It was time to meet the producers.

The rich symbolism of Mayan textiles dates back centuries. For women, clothing consists of some variation of a huipil, a traditional decorative blouse, and a wraparound skirt. Colors and patterns vary between ethnic groups and historically were used by groups to distinguish themselves. Quetzals (the national bird of Guatemala eponymous with its currency) represents all things sacred, while abstract corn patterns (looking like a spine) represents the backbone of the communities’ food source and traditions. Even diamond patterns that seem purely decorative to an outsider hold significance to the wearers.

Coffee farmer for ACODIHUE on his farm in Huehuetenango department of Guatemala.

The men of this specific community of Mam coffee producers, have a very distinctive style of dress. The men who stood before me wore red and white striped pants, light blue button-down shirts with an oversized, colorfully-patterned collars and straw hats with blue ribbons. According to this community, the red pants the men wore were originally issued to them as a uniform shortly after the Spanish conquered this region (around 1529) to identify them as slaves. Since then, the red pants have come to represent to them the blood spilled by their ancestors. Once a source of pain, the attire is now a source of pride. They celebrate their survival.

While the majority of men I saw in Todos Santos dressed in this manner, there were some who made some modern fashion substitutions. I saw the occasional L.A. Dodgers cap swapped for the straw variety, or graphic tee undershirts peeking out behind missing buttons. The small children, I noticed, were dressed head to toe in modern clothes. I was told that the children earn their traditional outfits when they reach a certain age. Much of the integration of modern clothing seems to be done more for the sake of convenience and cost savings, rather than to make a fashion statement, or show loyalty to a sports team. Traditional clothing is made locally by hand, and therefore is expensive. Much of a worker’s earnings go toward saving for an outfit.

I wanted to capture the rich color palette of the textiles and ensure that whatever design elements I presented in the packaging design reflect the people who made the product. This is why we travelled those rural, mountainous dirt roads to sit before these coffee producers, and ask them about their clothing. Or rather, I would ask these inquiries to my client in English, who would then ask the head of the community in Spanish, who would then pose the question to his community in Mam. Responses would follow the reverse path back to me, and on went this multilingual game of telephone.

We discussed various other visual items of note: the painted doors, the birds of the region, the flowers. The ruta plant or rue was mentioned as one that had particular importance to the community. It is a fragrant herb they grow in abundance. A tea made from the rue plant is said to relieve anxiety or dispel fears.

After our meeting, we were given the grand tour of the coffee farm. The head farmer led us down the paths. Small boys ran to catch up, jumping high to snag a stick from a tree, dodging and weaving playfully between coffee plants in a form of tag. Some things require no translation.

Guatemala is a land with a multitude of cultures, languages and traditions woven tightly and colorfully together like the pattered textiles on display in every market. Luckily, I had arrived a week previous to my assignment to take in the chaos and the beauty of Guatemala. With a friend, I explored the tourist traps and had off-the-beaten-trail adventures.

Here are a few stories that shaped my experience.

Walking on Lava

Volcán Pacaya oozes and spews lava, sending us scrambling.

Guatemala is one of the most actively volcanic countries in the world. In the mountains surrounding Antigua, where I stayed for my first week in the country, lava oozes slowly from Volcán Pacaya, explodes violently from Fuego or lies in wait inside Volcán de Agua and Acatenango. These eruptions — or the potentially of such — reminds the residents, and us tourists of the volatility of nature. The volcanos are a source of awe, fascination and real danger as evidenced by the deadly explosion of Fuego in June of 2018.

On an August evening, my friend Martha and I arrived in Antigua, the beautiful old colonial capital after dark. We were welcomed by Jorge, the property owner of the language school that would be our home for the week. He mentioned offhandedly that sometimes at night you can see the orange tip of the still-active Fuego. Our eyes wide, we dashed for the spiral stone staircase to the rooftop. By moonlight, we struggled to make out the skyline. I tried to identify mountains by their looming silhouettes. With a quarter turn, the identification process got a whole lot easier! There on the horizon was the towering Fuego, actively-spewing lava, its orange tip growing and shrinking with every heave. We cheered and then stood silently in awe. It was our first night in Guatemala.

Still exuberated by our night viewing of Fuego, my friend Martha and I awoke with plans to explore Fuego’s less explosive cousin to the east, Pacaya. In 2018, when I last visited Pacaya, she was gently steaming from her top, and the entire length of her lava beds were walkable, with trails carved through them, and tourists pausing to roast marshmallows in the steam of her vents. Since my last visit, she had roared to life, not to be outdone by Fuego. We emerged from the forested hiking trail to explore the exposed hillside beyond the treeline, with Pacaya’s summit in our vision and lava fields sprawled over the landscape. I found myself viewing a completely different landscape from my previous journey. Pacaya’s yearlong-oozing and sporadic pulses had completely devoured the former hiking trails. The entire face was now built up with freshly-dried lava. Active, red, hot and tumbling lava patches showed us she wasn’t ready to return to dormancy anytime soon.

We were certain that in the U.S., the general public would, never under any circumstances, be allowed this close to an active lava bed. But of course, this was Guatemala! Cocky tourists like us got close enough to the fresh lava to feel the heat and of course, roast marshmallows (still a tradition). This was pahoehoe lava, a slow-moving oozing type that nonetheless sent us scrambling when a red, hot hunk of melted rock made a dramatic tumble our direction. Volcano dogs (strays) darted between us, seemingly unaware of the danger of their surroundings, content to feed off of sympathy trail mix snacks and dropped marshmallows.

With the sun about to set, and the valley containing Guatemala City spread out before us, our group was reluctant to leave this majestic mountain scene. But eventually, at dusk, we started our descent down the mountain back through the lush greenery of Guatemala that only volcanic soil can induce.

Meeting our Dinner (Vegetarians Beware)

Pepian cooking class with Hilda from De La Gente.

The Pepian cooking class offered by the organization, De La Gente, advertised itself as a culinary experience that was uniquely Guatemalan. The class didn’t take place in a fancy commercial kitchen in Antigua. Rather it brought us to a small town square in a working class Antiguan suburb in search of a woman named Hilda. Luckily the square was small and we (two white women) stood out. Surprisingly, it was a man who approached us. Fortunately we had picked up enough Spanish to understand that he was Hilda’s husband and he was there to lead us to his home.

We found Hilda ready and waiting for us by her outdoor hearth. Her five-year-old daughter, Jasmine, still in her school uniform, darted back and forth between her mother and other stimuli (dogs, horse, smart phone, toys). Like many Guatemalan buildings, it was hard to gauge the size of their house from the outside. A small door along a colorful cement brick reveals all that lies within. Just inside the doors lay an expansive courtyard with a stretch of a corn field, a carpenter’s studio, a garage, a modest home, and the outdoor kitchen which we were posed in front of, ready to tackle Guatemala’s celebratory dish, Pepian. Pepian is a broth-y, pepper-y, savory chicken stew with vegetables such as carrots, potatoes and guisquil, pronounced “wiskil”, a squash native to the region.

Fire roasting veggies and herbs for the salsa.

This cooking class was all in Spanish. Martha and I had exchanged nervous looks as we checked the box ,“We do not want an English translator” when we signed up for the class. After all, we were on a budget, and how were we going to learn Spanish if we kept relying on crutches! Luckily cooking classes depend much on physical demonstrations. We knew enough Spanish to not accidentally agree to cut off the chicken’s head, which was step 1 of the Chicken Pepian recipe. Not an easy thing to watch for two people who have been vegetarian adjacent at various points in their lives. Yet, as meat eaters, we understand that learning the process of how meat ends up on our plates is a valuable one. Martha and I watched with wonder at how expertly Hilda beheaded the chicken, drained its blood and de-feathered its body. It was all accomplished in a matter of minutes. A variety of chicken organs and body parts were presented to us, with the question, “Do you want to include this in the Pepian?”. My understanding was that these items would flavor the broth rather than end up in our soup bowls. We said yes to some, no to others, figuring it was best to take it slow.

Hilda completing step 1 of the Pepian recipe.

“Quieres cortar las vegetales?” Hilda asked. With the chicken left to simmer in broth, we tackled the more comfortable task of cutting up the vegetables for the stew. In went the carrots, potatoes, guisquil. Then, it was time to make the sauce! This process started by fire-roasting the peppers, tomatoes, garlic, cilantro, pumpkin seeds and sesame seeds (which popped like popcorn on the hot stone surface). Out came the metate (a grinding stone similar to a mortar pestle), which was piled high with the fire-roasted goodies that were slowly ground to a pulp. After we had all tried our hand at the exhausting work of sauce-making via stone grinding, Hilda said, “Ahora usamos la licuadora.” She pulled a blender from a shelf and the remainder of the ingredients became sauce in the way of the 21st century. Sometimes practically wins out over nostalgia.

Hilda expertly demonstrates how to pat the dough into a tortilla.

Our lesson ended with tortilla-making! We were taught how to lightly pass the round dough balls back and forth between our palms gently pressing them into broader circles. Imperfections (especially from my clumsy handiwork) dissolve on the stone stovetop as the dough becomes a tortilla warmed by fire below.

The table is set, and we are hungry to consume the meal we helped craft. Hilda has combined the sauce into the broth, and our final soup dishes are bubbling hot. Jasmine is our dinner companion, which is helpful, since speaking Spanish with small children (five and under) is an ideal way to boost your language confidence. We savor the soup and gave silent thanks to the chicken.

In Search of Maximón

Santiago Atitlán, Lake Atitlán, Guatemala.

To find Maximón, the mysterious and drunken Mayan saint/devil deity (depending on your perspective), one must be persistent. Maximón is not at the beck and call of the average tourist. Sure, anyone who bought Lonely Planet: Guatemala probably read the paragraph about the wayward saint, but finding him on the ground in Santiago Atitlán made for a daunting quest!

Santiago Atitlán is a small Mayan town on the banks of the picturesque, volcanic and oh-so-yoga-pose-perfect Lake Atitlán. Martha and I arrived to the lakeside village via a tourist shuttle, the safest and most direct way for foreigners to get around Guatemala. Shuttles run from Antigua to the scenic lake town of Panajachel. From there lanchas (small ferries) or private boats zip tourists and locals between all the scenic towns that dot the landscape. We chose Santiago Atitlán for its famous textile markets, close vicinity to hiking opportunities, few tourists and its storied “saint”.

Maximón’s spirit inhabits a wooden doll, clad in a suit, tie and colorful scarves. Maximón is a hip and devious type who smokes cigarettes/cigars all day (lighting and ash disposal provided by his keepers). He resides in an ordinary citizen’s home, tended to by the family and a steady stream of visitors for one year. Then he is “adopted” by a new local family. Maximón is known to tip back (he is literally tipped back by his keepers) a few bottles of local rum every day. Worshippers visit Maximón to ask for items like motorcycles, and other goods that Jesus would not approve of. They light colored candles that reflect the nature of their request. White for health. Black to confound an enemy. Green for monetary gain. Religion in this region is a complex mash-up of Catholicism (imported from Spain during the conquest) and local indigenous customs and beliefs. Somehow, the oh-so-flexible Catholic Church has allowed Maximón to persist. Or, at least, they look the other way so long as the locals still participate in more traditional Catholic practices.

Iglesia Católica Santiago Apostol, Santiago Atitlán.

Finding Maximón as an outsider with little Spanish skills and no Mayan language knowledge involved much misdirection and confusion. Were Catholics we encountered purposely sending us back to the Catholic Church, in hopes we wouldn’t find this fringe and mischievous deity? Or were they sending us there as a close reference point to seek further guidance? Martha and I debated the options after the fourth dead end led us back to the Catholic Church plaza scratching our heads.

Asking Ladinos (non-indigenous) Guatemalans was the easy thing to do since we were sure they spoke Spanish (possibly some English). But, given that this deity is mostly worshipped in indigenous circles, we thought we might be better served by asking a Mayan.

I summoned the courage to approach an Oracle-like, old Mayan woman sitting on the street. “Where can we find Maximón?” I asked in Spanish. She raised her eyes to me slowly, gave a knowing nod and extended her finger to point down a nearby side street. That street was buzzing with activity which seemed to be centered around an apartment courtyard. We finally found Maximón in a small room off the courtyard. We humbly entered the space to find it consumed, top to bottom with flowers, fabrics, painted patterns, candles, coffins, altars, and of course, front-and-center was Maximón with a half dozen or so patrons surrounding him.

Martha and I stood witness while a stream of believers prayed reverently, and then cracked jokes and lit cigarettes. One man lit an entire bundle of candles, placed them at the wooden mannequin’s feet and held up a stack of photos, one by one, entreating Maximón’s support. Judging by the nature of the photos and the candle color, the man was there to pass along a prayer request on behalf of hospitalized believers.

We made our own donations and thanked Maximón for making our first week in Guatemala.

Bold New Branding for Bold New Coffees

Meetings fueled by coffee at ACODIHUE headquarters

“I don’t even have Instagram,” Nuria, ACODIHUE’s communications director lamented. Actually she didn’t lament it, so much as heave a knowing sigh that learning it is in her future. I was at the offices of ACODIHUE, discussing how, beyond packaging, these new coffee/honey brands will be expressed. Each product will have a different name, but we want them to feel like they are part of the same family, so they look cohesive when displayed together. As a brand, ACODIHUE has a website and a Facebook page, but it was not geared at a consumer audience. Rather, it told the story of their valuable farmer partnerships and was designed to attract new farmers and funding. For this reason, I recommended there be a new brand name created to encapsulate all products, and the client recommended we simply use, ACODIHUE Productos as the consumer-facing arm. ACODIHUE Productos would have its own website in the future, linking to the parent company, and its own social media pages. Together we brainstormed content categories for future social media posts: farmer profiles, environmental stewardship, product features, events/community engagement, staff profiles, etc. Social media is a wonderful place to build your brand when you have a low budget! But, it needs to be populated with regular and diverse content. ACODIHUE has many stories with great photos to share, so creating a structure and platform for this communication is an easy first step towards building consumer-facing engagement.

ACODIHUE had two existing products: I’xkapeh (high quality coffee made by women) and La Meseta honey. The designs were completely different, and rather generic, not fully reflecting the people and places from which they are made. The objective was to redesign these products so they family together, and add two new brands to the mix: one coffee brand geared at a youth market, and La Meseta coffee for the everyday Guatemalan people.

I’xkapeh coffee re-brand.

These four products represent different ideas and have different audiences. I’xkapeh coffee is the high-end brand that celebrates the fact that it is made by indigenous women, promotes equal pay and female entrepreneurship. The goal for this brand was have it sold in high-end stores/hotels locally, in Guatemala City, and eventually exported to the United States. It needed to be bilingual, and the design needed to be reflective of Guatemala, yet approachable for all Americans.

El Joven, as it was tentatively called, was for the coffee for the youth! This product was created to reflect ACODIHUE’s emphasis on youth career development programs designed to offer alternatives to migration. The name was not yet decided, but the latest iteration was Mi Generacion. It has more of a Guatemala-focused audience, but they wanted it to work for the US market too.

Mi Generacion branding. — *Mi Generacion* branding.

La Meseta coffee branding. — *La Meseta* coffee branding.

La Meseta translates as “the plateau” and refers to the highland region of Guatemala just outside the city of Huehuetenango. The La Meseta coffee and honey products were primarily geared at the local market, products of and by the people of Huehue(as it is called). However, ACODIHUE did want to leave open the possibility of exporting the honey in the future, so the label needed to be up to USDA standards and bilingual. While the La Meseta coffee product would be cheaper, the quality of the product would still be superior to other local brands.

In Guatemala, the standard breakfast is called Desayuno Chapin. Chapin is a slang term Guatemalans use to call themselves (apparently derived from a type of sandal-style worn during the Spanish conquest). The standard breakfast: eggs (often scrambled with tomatoes and onions), a handful of fried plantains, a triangle of queso fresco, exactly three fresh tortillas and a scoop of refried black beans with two tortilla chips stuck in them like flags. Oh, and coffee of course! This breakfast was amazingly consistent everywhere I travelled in Guatemala and luckily, delicious.

Desayuno Chapin was the fuel needed to jumpstart my first day of “real” work. Now brimming with inspiration and fully-briefed on my task, the creative process began with thumbnail sketches, and quickly jumped to Adobe Illustrator. The first task was to create three packaging design options for the front of their main product, I’xkapeh. After two days, I had three design options to present to the client. The presentation went well. We eliminated one design option, discussed revisions to the chosen I’xkapeh design, and decided the second option would work better as the brand for El Joven.

Once the general creative direction was established, I could work on detail work like nutrition facts, chasing down bar codes, parent brand graphics, writing draft copy for the packages and finishing the back and sides of the packaging design.

By the end of my two week assignment, I had attended four client meetings with a rotating cast of staff, always fueled by freshly-prepared coffee. I designed two complete coffee bags, one coffee label (front/back) and a full label for two sizes of honey. We solidified a color direction, font choices, and I put together a full suite of illustration assets that can be used as a part of the package design, or on their own to accent a future social media post.

“We Heart Huehue” brand.

I recommended including positive messaging about Huehuetenango on every package. While Huehue is known in small circles as Guatemala’s high altitude coffee region, the average American coffee drinker isn’t familiar with the place. Naming the region consistently on coffee packaging could help give notoriety to the department and associate the region with quality, high-altitude coffee. A collaborative regional branding effort could go far to raise the prominence of this region. The “We Heart Huehue” brand is one I developed from the monumental welcome typography that greets you when entering the city. This would be recognizable as such to residents of the city, but also widely understood in the U.S. as an expression of local pride.

This is part of a broader need for a new narrative about Guatemala, one that competes with the overpowering stories of migration, poverty, and drug wars. A competing narrative focuses on the rich cultural history, wealth of tropical food products, the natural wonder of many ecosystems, and the colorfully quaint cities alive with busy markets, art and families. This is not to deny the struggles of daily life for thousands of Guatemalans, but rather to celebrate the cultural wealth and the strength of Guatemalan people.

The Migration Crisis and The Trump Administration

The Guatemalan economy is dependent on the U.S. in many ways. Guatemalan immigrants that make it to the U.S. and find work usually send much of their hard-earned dollars back to their families in Guatemala — called remittances. These lucky families often show their appreciation for our country by painting American flags in the plaster friezes of their Guatemalan home (paid for by those remittances). Guatemalans are appreciative of the work by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Marines who have supported the region through emergency response and infrastructure projects. Then there are the many who benefit from U.S. aid directly through the myriad of programs run by our government (like Farmer-to-Farmer) or NGOs.

Despite this, according to The Washington Post, “Trump announced in March that the U.S. would stop providing foreign aid funds to El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala due to the continued migration of citizens from those countries to the southern U.S. border.”

The current presidential administration cites the migration crisis as a reason to slash foreign aid programs like Farmer-to-Farmer. Ironically, they are cutting down on the very programs working on the ground in Guatemala to help stall the migration crisis.

Guatemalans have a shared interest in slowing migration. While it’s true that many individual Guatemalan families benefit from remittances, Guatemala as a whole suffers as families are split apart, and young men learn trades and participate in the labor force outside of their home country. According to National Geographic, “More than 10 percent of Guatemala’s GDP comes from remittances, totaling more than $9 billion last year, or around $25 million per day. Since 2014, remittances to Guatemala have increased every year by nearly a billion dollars. Huehuetenango is one of the top three receivers.” It’s a dangerous journey to the U.S. and many migrants don’t survive. Many end up in deep debt to coyotes, some of whom take violent measures when they can’t collect.

Painted U.S. flags on display in Huehuetenango.

America’s political whims have real consequences for our vulnerable neighbors who look to the U.S. for support. I sincerely hope we can again work together toward a shared goal of slowed migration and a strong Guatemala.

I wrapped up my Guatemalan journey with a weekend stay in Quetzaltenango (aka Xela). Xela is a beautiful Guatemalan city with a volcano-dotted skyline, colorful storefronts and a rich mix of Mayan and Ladino culture. There are glimpses here of what Guatemala is at its best: culturally diverse, a hub for language learning, rich with quality textiles and delicious food products.

Flower market with parrot in Quetzaltenango.

I am once again grateful to Partners of the Americas and Farmer-to-Farmer for this wonderful cultural learning opportunity!

All Design Work from this trip.

Full set of Photos from Guatemala.

Melissa Delzio received the “Volunteer of the Year” award for the USAID Partners of the Americas Farmer-to-Farmer program in 2019.

Melissa is an Independent Designer in Portland, Oregon with 15 years of experience creating print and interactive work for international brands, local businesses, nonprofits and educational institutions. Her work reflects her passion for issues of social and environmental justice, feminism, sports, small businesses, travel and history. She is an Instructor at Portland State University, and is leading an initiative to tell the story of Portland’s design history.