Réplica channels screen-printing nostalgia in ZeyZey’s vibrant identity — The Brand Identity – Home of the Greatest in Graphic & Brand Design

Miami’s concert scene has its extremes – large commercial venues for major touring acts, intimate clubs for late-night sets. What’s often missing is the middle ground, the spaces where emerging local bands can share a stage with established international artists, where a tropical cumbia night can transition into a family-friendly gathering. ZeyZey fills that gap. Named after the Arhuaco word for ‘happiness’ from Colombia’s Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, the venue opened in 2023 as a place where different musical worlds converge.

For Réplica, the brief was refreshingly open: create a fun, flexible identity that could work across genres and audiences. What emerged is a visual system rooted in Latin American graphic traditions – the kind of album covers and concert posters that founders Camilo Roa and Juan Pablo Mejía grew up seeing in Colombia. “We’re all from Colombia in the studio, but Camilo and I have been living in Europe for a while now. We both grew up listening to our parents’ records, so we carry a strong background in Latin American music,” Mejía shares. “This project became an excuse to dig back into the albums we’ve always loved. Discos Fuentes – a legendary Colombian label – was one of our biggest inspirations. We owe so much of our visual and musical culture to what we saw and heard growing up in Colombia. While doing our research, we began to notice recurring patterns in the covers: often a mix of typography, photography and colour limitations. That’s when we decided to take a similar approach for the graphic system – broad and flexible, but with specific choices tailored to each piece.”

The identity operates on what Réplica calls a “principle of restriction” – using a limited set of resources per piece, much like the old typography and screen-printing workshops they reference. This wasn’t just a stylistic choice. Time constraints initially pushed the team toward working quickly with what they had, but the limitation evolved into a strategic approach that shapes every decision. “At first, it was a matter of time constraints – we had to deliver things quickly and develop the identity fast,” Mejía notes. “As the project progressed, we started thinking: what if we were working in an old-school screenprinting studio with a limited amount of resources and had to design with only what we had? It might sound romantic, but we like the idea of thinking analogically in such an overwhelmingly digital world. If you look at Discos Fuentes' records, they probably had a limited set of typographic options, yet they made the most of what they had – and it looks amazing.”

Typography anchors the entire system. Rather than settling on a single typeface family, Réplica assembled a curated selection that alternates between condensed and expanded forms, curves and straight lines. They describe it as a typographic “parranda” – a Colombian term for a lively party where different elements come together in unexpected combinations. “We’ve been working with digital adaptations of wooden type, mixed with contemporary typefaces from studios and designers we deeply admire – such as Pangram, BB Bureau, Eliott Grunewald and Otherwhere Collective,” Mejía explains. “Type is one of the cornerstones of our work, so we love to take the time to carefully curate what we use. In ZeyZey’s case, we felt we didn’t want to rely solely on screen-printing nostalgia, but instead bring a sharper edge through contemporary approaches to typography. Thinking about it as a parranda opened the possibility to introduce new typefaces and consider how each artist or band could be represented. Condensed, expanded, and everything in between helps us adapt to short or long names.”

The colour palette pushes even further into unpredictable territory. Vibrant, highly contrasted combinations that might make most designers uncomfortable become part of the appeal. Réplica starts with bold digital combinations, then refines them when selecting Pantones for print. The palette doesn’t always cooperate – not every colour works well together – but that’s part of the experiment. “We love working with colour palettes that challenge us – combinations that might make us uncomfortable or that we would normally never mix together,” Mejía shares. “Our identities can sometimes become quite complex due to the number of colours we bring in, but with ZeyZey we had so much freedom that we wanted to explore a broad, vibrant palette. It can be a bit tricky to use, yet experimenting within the palette has led us to discover some very interesting combinations. The palette falls outside our control in the sense that not all colours work good together, but it kind of invites you to try and see if it could work, it’s quite fun and therapeutic in a way.”

When designing individual concert posters, the process balances consistency with spontaneity. Réplica keeps all the month’s posters in a single file, which helps maintain rhythm across colour, typography and imagery while leaving room for discovery. They listen to the featured artists, select typefaces that capture the right energy, then decide whether to keep things purely typographic or incorporate images. “Many of them we already know, which makes it a bit easier, but it’s been great discovering a lot of new music along the way,” Mejía notes. “The process begins by placing the basic and recurring elements of the posters. Then it’s about finding the typefaces that best reflect the name of the band, artist or DJ. We try to balance typefaces with strong character and ones that are softer or more understated. Sometimes we experiment with colour combinations within the same compositions, and other times we revisit our archive of posters to see if we can bring something back. Basically, it’s a constant back-and-forth game of looking forward and looking back.”

The identity has resonated with the local music community, turning ZeyZey into an important venue in Miami where Réplica now designs posters for bands they’ve long admired. The system proves flexible enough to handle everything from emerging local acts to established international artists, from tropical parties to synthpop concerts – all while maintaining the authentic energy that makes ZeyZey feel like its name suggests: happiness.