Systemizing heritage—bringing a family's warmth and maximalism to the web

Siete's visual identity is layered, vibrant, heritage-driven—bold colors, intricate patterns, photography full of warmth and family. That richness works beautifully on packaging where everything is controlled. But on the web, where editors need to create new pages, launch products, and publish content regularly, that complexity had become chaos. Every new page was a bespoke build. There was no system underneath.

Recipes lived in a plugin. Events lived in another plugin. Products pulled from Shopify but couldn't connect to recipes or other content. If you wanted to update a product category description, you had to find every place it appeared and change it manually. The team was fighting their own website just to keep things updated.

Siete's goal wasn't just e-commerce—they wanted to drive people to retail stores where Siete products lived on shelves. They needed a site that built brand affinity, told their family story, and helped people find Siete at their local grocery—not just a transactional online shop.

Drawn had created something distinctive: vibrant colors inspired by Mexican folk art, layered patterns that reference heritage textiles, warm photography centered on family and food. Our challenge was figuring out how that translated to screens—where could it flex, where did it need guardrails, and how could we keep the personality without losing coherence?

Siete's brand is rooted in Mexican-American heritage—the Garza family's story, traditional flavors reimagined for different dietary needs. But their audience extends across Latino cultures and beyond. The brand needed to honor that specificity while remaining inclusive. How do you celebrate heritage authentically without making anyone feel like they're not invited to the table?

We mapped what existed and what needed to exist. Recipes, events, products, stories—these weren't just "pages," they were content types with relationships between them. A recipe features products. An event connects to recipes. Products appear across multiple contexts. The site needed an information architecture that could hold these relationships, not just a collection of isolated pages.

Siete's marketing team needed to move fast—launch products, publish recipes, promote events—without depending on developers for every update. The system had to be flexible enough to support their creativity but structured enough to maintain brand consistency.

Primary brand colors stay global—the orange, the vibrant accent colors everyone associates with Siete. But we added a secondary system: accent colors that vary by page grouping (products, recipes, community). CTAs are color-coded by context. Even shadows tie back to page group colors. This lets the brand breathe and shift while maintaining visual continuity.

Siete's patterns are layered and intricate—beautiful on packaging, but potentially overwhelming if applied without structure to digital layouts. We identified where patterns could live (headers, section breaks, accents) and created clear rules for how they combine. The maximalism stays, but it's intentional, not accidental.

The brand's typography references Mexican vernacular design—warm, approachable, confident. We brought that same personality to the web while ensuring readability across different screen sizes and contexts.

Siete's photography shows real families, real kitchens, real moments around food. We made sure the site could showcase that warmth—not just as hero images, but woven throughout the experience.

We moved from a monolithic Shopify theme to a system where Shopify handles commerce, Sanity CMS manages content, and integrations connect to tools like Swoogo for events. This wasn't about chasing new technology—it was about giving editors the right tool for each job.

Recipes are now first-class content objects with proper structure—ingredients, dietary tags, featured products, cooking instructions—all connected and manageable. Same with events, which integrate with Swoogo and update automatically. Products flow from Shopify into Sanity and render with consistent brand-aligned layouts.

We created a flexible page builder using reusable, brand-aligned sections. Editors can assemble pages, create seasonal campaigns, and launch new content—but within a system that keeps everything coherent. No more bespoke one-offs that drift from the brand.

Since Siete's strategy prioritizes retail distribution, we made finding Siete products in stores just as easy as buying online. The store locator is prominent, the content builds brand affinity, and the experience supports the business model—not just pushing every visitor toward checkout.

The site loads quickly, updates smoothly, and works reliably—because when people are looking for products at dinner time or searching for a recipe before grocery shopping, speed matters.

Every content type (recipe, event, product, story) has a clear structure that ensures completeness and enables relationships. Add a recipe, tag the products it uses, and those connections work everywhere.

Section templates, content blocks, layout patterns—all built with Siete's visual language baked in. Editors can create new pages knowing they'll feel brand-aligned without starting from scratch every time.

Products connect to recipes. Recipes reference events. Everything links naturally because the system understands these relationships—not because someone manually created each connection.

The team knows how to structure a recipe, how to write product descriptions, how to build a landing page. The system guides good decisions while staying flexible.

Siete's brand is layered, maximalist, full of personality. We didn't simplify that for digital—we built a system that could hold all of it. Color variations, pattern layers, rich photography—it's all there, just organized so it works together.

Every decision prioritized Siete's marketing team who'd live with this system daily. Can they launch a product? Publish a recipe? Create a seasonal campaign? If they needed a developer for basic updates, the system failed.

Recipes aren't just pages with ingredients—they're structured objects with dietary tags, product connections, and cooking steps. Events aren't blog posts—they integrate with event management tools and update automatically. We gave each content type the structure it needed.

We worked to ensure the visual richness, the photography, the language—all of it felt true to Siete's Mexican-American roots while remaining welcoming. The brand celebrates where it comes from without creating boundaries around who it's for.