A Constant Reminder

Here, I was present only as an observer, walking between the cemetery, the town, and the nighttime rituals of Día de Muertos in Tulum. The experience was direct, quiet, and deeply human.

The way people build their altars and offer gifts (Las Ofrendas) to those who are no longer here, the time they give to memory, and the natural relationship between life and death, food, music, and family reshaped my understanding of what it means to intervene as a designer.

It reminded me how and why I like design.

I learn by stepping in. Not only into cultures, but into everything I design around.

Companies. Products. Institutions. Systems. People.

Over the years, I’ve learned about things that have nothing to do with design on paper: food production, business structures, medicine, finance, craftsmanship, organizations, and how people actually work inside them.