Immibrand: Design & Strategy for an Equitable Marketplace

A deep dive into Immibrand's brand and UX strategy, showcasing how purpose-driven design and strategic choices built an equitable marketplace for indie artisans.

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Overview
Product
UX & Design
Brand
Marketing
Engineering
Economics
Artifacts

Overview

Create an equitable marketplace where artisans don’t rely on extractive platforms. Fostering creativity, inclusion, and growth while helping artisans build their brands and thrive.

A mission-driven marketplace for creators rooted in culture and identity. A space for cultural storytelling, immigrant identity, and resistance alongside commerce.

A typical corporate e-commerce site, a walled garden, or an extractive platform with hidden fees. It is not a trap but a springboard for brand autonomy.

The Challenge & Mission

Immibrand began as an idea in late 2016, sparked by the anti-immigrant rhetoric of former and current President Trump, who targeted Mexicans, documented or otherwise.

Today, as the threat of fascism erodes the façade of American democracy, Immibrand has grown into my most powerful outlet for anti-imperialist and anti-colonialist expression.

Through political commentary, resistance, and bold pop art, it amplifies our presence as a community that must be negotiated with and cannot be ignored.

Navigating the anti-immigrant landscape and building a platform that prioritizes values over pure profit.

Mission-First, Multivendor Marketplace. Focus is on intentional curation and growth beyond the platform and equitable support to a myriad of artists and artisans sharing their lived experiences through their chosen mediums. Accessibility is key.

Platform: WordPress/WooCommerce
Payments: Stripe
Economics: Sliding scale fees
Education: Integrated courses for brand growth.

Product Strategy

Pricing Phases

$0/forever
20 Product Limit
Sales Analytics
Online Sales & Marketing 101
Public Community

$9/month
50 Product Limit
Enhanced Sales Analytics
Community & Email Support

$69/month
100 Product Limit
Priority Support
Advanced Marketing Tools

Research & Values

Finding: Creators want their shops to reflect their cultural heritage and political values.

Method: Community engagement, founder’s lived experience.

Impact: Shops are designed to highlight storytelling and mission alongside products.

Finding: High upfront fees and hidden commissions drain the hustle of small makers.

Method: Competitive analysis of Etsy, Shopify, and Squarespace.

Impact: No listing fees, no transaction fees. Sliding scale platform fee based on sale price.

Finding: Sellers fear being locked into a platform that owns their audience.

Method: Seller interviews and market trends.

Impact: Immibrand acts as a launchpad, teaching sellers how to grow beyond the marketplace.

Finding: Unlimited uploads can lead to spam and lower quality perception.

Method: Beta testing and quality assurance analysis.

Impact: Product limits encourage focusing on the best products and strategic growth.

UX & Design

Personas

Motivations: Sustainable income, cultural expression, community support.

Barriers: Extractive fees, lack of technical knowledge, corporate hustle culture.

Opportunity: Immibrand provides a values-aligned platform with educational resources.

Motivations: Supporting marginalized creators, unique products, & ethical commerce.

Barriers: Difficulty finding authentic artisan brands, lack of transparency in big marketplaces.

Opportunity: Immibrand offers a curated marketplace of mission-driven products.

Brand

Immigrant + Brand = Immibrand

The wordmark is simple: reduce visual clutter without sacrificing legibility and meaning. Gestalt design principles state that clarity and impact are guided by stripping the unnecessary.

While Immibrand remains consistent in its mission, its deliverables change and adapt.

Initially, the focus was merch like hoodies & tees, it quickly picked up momentum with its Hispanic audiences and admirers of Latin American pop culture through portrait illustrations.

And now, it’s undergoing a transformation where I’ve opened the platform to other creatives and am being more intentional in helping others reach their creative potential, economic autonomy, and discovery through everyday objects and artifacts as tools for cultural communication.

Header Typography

Immibrand’s primary font is Cubano, a condensed design with heavy strokes and soft, rounded corners that give it a friendly feel but bold presence that is excellent for short headlines.

Body Typography

Immibrand’s body font family is Futura PT. A popular and standard typeface, Futura offers clean geometries, easy reading, and a dynamic range in readability at different scales (Helvetica can eat it).

Brand Colors

Visual branding for image-rich websites is always a balance of creating a distinct identity, but one that doesn’t overwhelm the content and distracts the viewer.

And, we Latinos, aren’t soft-spoken people. Our colors are vibrant and energetic. This is my challenge.

#494949

#c03221

#daa520

Marketing

Early organic traction: 151+ followers generating 40k+ views on a single video and ~50k views across top posts in one month. View-to-follower ratios exceed 100×, indicating strong algorithmic pickup and content-market resonance without paid spend.

Tiktok organic analytics for Immibrand. 40K views

Tiktok organic analytics for Immibrand. 4.5K views

Tiktok organic analytics for Immibrand. 4.3K views

Account Handles

Immibrand, a coined name, had the advantage of securing all essential online domain names and social media profiles, including:

immibrand.com
facebook.com/immibrand
instagram.com/immibrand
pinterest.com/immibrand
tiktok.com/@immibrand

Language & Visual Identity

The brand’s language and visual identity were crafted to resonate as clear, intelligent, and relatable. It embraces the Spanglish vernacular most familiar to 1.5+ generation Latinos, reflecting the working-class demographic it serves. This approach is not about “dumbing down” but about meeting the audience where they are, with authenticity and cultural nuance.