Nicte Cuevas is an award-winning bilingual brand strategist and designer, as well as the owner of Nicte Creative Design. She connects color, cultura, and design into a purpose-driven brand strategy for visionary companies. Through empathy-driven methodology, Nicte evolves, invigorates, and amplifies businesses’ unique brand positions. Her roots from Venezuela, Mexico, and Colombia deepen her love and commitment to cultural diversity in her work. Nicte has taught over 120,000 worldwide with courses on branding, color psychology, and design as a LinkedIn Learning instructor.
She joins us this episode to discuss the ways that culture and color can come together to support a brand's voice, strategy and impact. Nicte shares how her own personal journey and multicultural Latina heritage have shaped the way she uses the power of color to help people and brands tell their stories and connect with their audiences. Whether you're developing your own personal brand or contributing to the brand of an organization, this episode speaks to the art of communication and how the methods and media that we use can impact how our voice is heard.
Transcript below:
Erica D'Eramo 0:10
Hello and welcome to the Two Piers podcast. I'm your host, Erica D'Eramo. And today we have an episode that's all about culture, design color, and what that means for us and our our businesses and our mission. So joining us today we have Nicte Cuevas, so she's an award winning bilingual brand strategist, and designer. She's also the owner of Nicte Creative Design. So she connects color, culture and design into a purpose driven brand strategy for visionary companies. Through empathy driven methodology, Nicte evolves, invigorates, and amplifies businesses' unique brand positions. Her roots from Venezuela, Mexico and Colombia, deepen her love and commitment to cultural diversity in her work. She's taught over 120,000 worldwide with courses on branding, Color Psychology and design as a LinkedIn learning instructor, which is how we originally found her. We are so excited to have her join the podcast and share a little bit of her insight from the work that she does in this area and how it connects to the work that you do in your area.
Erica D'Eramo 1:30
Nicte, thank you so much for joining us. We're so happy to have you here.
Nicte Cuevas 1:34
I am so excited to be here Erica, thank you so much for inviting me and being able to have this powerful conversation that we're about to start.
Erica D'Eramo 1:43
Yeah, I I absolutely love the work you do. I love the resources that you put out there. Like in a sea of frustration around trying to get branding materials together, dealing with like, different apps and whatnot, I went seeking someone who could really make that a smoother process for me, and so grateful that I stumbled across you on LinkedIn learning, it's probably the best LinkedIn learning course I've ever taken. So thank you for that. I really appreciate it so much. And I, I love that we got to work together. So I want I want to talk a little bit about the work that we did together so that people can understand kind of what it is that you do. But I also really want to understand, you know, your journey, your, your process, your origin story, and and maybe some of the insights that you have to share with our listeners about, you know, what you see businesses doing or organizations doing? And what could be better?
Nicte Cuevas 2:47
Yeah, I love that question. Because it really packs a lot of things that I think that we as businesses and brands don't share enough as our origin story and what really lit the fire in the candle for us to start and how we want to help others. And for me, the big shift in what I do and why I really am so specifically connected to color, guys kind of see my surroundings is that I love the power of color in that it's one of the first forms of language. So typically, we'll put our brain will process shapes first, then color, then we'll go into reading. So these initial perceptions are so important for people really feeling like they belong. And when I first moved to the US, I was very blessed to be able to do that. I finished high school in Venezuela. And at 18 I moved here, my dad was already working here with the petroleum industry. And so I thought, Okay, I'm moving to Houston, I have come to visit my dad, it shouldn't be such a tough transition. I was also blessed to learn English at an early age. So I thought, Okay, I should be Okay. And when I moved here, I was surprised that I experienced this big culture shock that I really felt I didn't belong here, nor there. And I experienced a lot of unfortunate situations where, you know, I was told I didn't belong, we don't want your kind here. You know, some racist comments, which are really tough. And I'm thankful that I think we're starting to be more aware and more open. I mean, a lot of things have changed since 2001 When I first moved here, which has been really great to see but I think that that really impacted me a lot. And I would tell my dad, well, why. Why is this happening? He's just like, you just need to blend in. Try not to stand out, just blend in and I would tell my dad, I don't get why we have to hide who we are to blend in and he's just like, this is just how you're going to be able to move forward. And so it was really hard for me to hear my dad say that because my dad came from very, very humble and tough beginnings. And he put himself himself through school. So hymns hearing say that was really tough for me. But I couldn't accept it. And I found that the way that I could be silently bold and loud was through color, because color connected me to my heritage to what I remember from back home. I'm... why I call myself a multicultural Latina. Because I was born in Mexico City, my mom's Colombian, my dad's Mexican and I was raised in Venezuela, my accent in Spanish is Venezuelan. So that's why all these things that I knew, and from all of my cultures, color was always a way of us, representing from, from how even just dressed day to day. So I really held on to color for the longest time. And then I started using that for branding, and how can people really stand out and use color in a way that is not let me just use these pretty pallets because they look nice. No, what are the emotions? How does that connect with your message. And I really started to push that push that. And then over the years, I started doing videos, which eventually led me to doing courses with LinkedIn learning, which has been incredible. And I never thought this would be my path. But I love that life gives me challenges that took me to this moment.
Erica D'Eramo 6:26
Yeah, that's a really powerful story. And I think that, like you mentioned, our origin stories really do inform so much of what is important to us and informs our identity and how we relate to the environments we're in. And I absolutely love this theme of you know, when presented with a reality that has lots of barriers in it, that makes things so much more challenging to be ourselves, that you found a way to find your own voice that was effective for you and took into account the reality that you were living in. I think so often, we hear advice, especially towards women, you know, and really anyone that is not part of this majority, white male majority, about how to like be smaller, or how to reshape their language or the way that they can fit in. Or the alternative is just "Just be yourself, just be yourself and everything will work out." And neither of those is necessarily right or true, right? Like we perceive real risks. And so you found a way to do that and navigate that effectively. I love that. It's so much about what Two Piers really tries to equip people with.
Nicte Cuevas 7:45
Yes. Which is a great reason too why when you reached out to me, I was so excited because I was reading your brand story. I'm like, This is what I love to do. And for me that's so important is that we align ourselves like we become allies with who we do business with, who we help. And so your story just really resonated, because that's where I feel we could have such a profound impact is listening to other stories, amplifying their stories and helping them find a better way in and not hiding. Like you were saying it's not. We hear all these. Sometimes I feel like like surface words because people don't necessarily know how to guide people through that. But that's not the answer because you end up feeling so unfulfilled because I remember that's exactly how I felt trying to blend in was just, I felt like I was caging myself in and I, until I discovered color. That was like where I finally felt like I released myself. And that kind of just became my go to especially when I have like, days where I feel really down or the weather is gloomy. I always turn to color it just enlivens me.
Erica D'Eramo 8:59
That's yeah, that's awesome. I, like speaking personally, I think for me, when you were talking about that, like my analog there is probably cooking like that, that food and cooking had so many parallels to me and like tapping into culture and being able to relate to other people and like having that be a way to connect to people and be a creative outlet. And so it's so interesting to see and I I wonder, you know how many people really understand what their, what their fallback is for how they express themselves that's not just words and language. Yeah. Interesting.
Nicte Cuevas 9:37
I love that. You mentioned that. I think it was just, I didn't realize this was a superpower of mine, but empathy. I'm a very high empath. And I used to get made fun of when I was younger, because I would cry for things I would you know, I was very tapped into emotion. And because I started to become more self aware, that's how I discovered that was my language that was how I felt so connected and grounded. But it was because I had to allow myself to explore and be Okay with processing those emotions that then took me to this. I'm like, oh, no, it's not bad that I'm an empath that actually helps me a lot with the work that I do. So being able for us to shift our mindset, and I think it's also breaking the generational trauma that has been passed on whether it's through spoken language through what we've seen, our elders do, or what society tells us. I think it's, and it's something that I really admire for younger generations, like the Generation Z community is very much about breaking these and being more outspoken. And for me, that's inspiring, because we have, some of us have been kellock. Well, it's, I guess that's how it is. We don't want to discourage our elders. We don't want to be disrespectful. But it's about drawing those boundaries, where we know we'll know we need to change this, because it's going to help not only ourselves, but future generations and other people not feel so like they have to be a part of a box to fit in.
Erica D'Eramo 11:13
Yeah, I mean, so I, I typically ask people like, "What drew you to this work? And why is it important to you?" And so much of that is coming through in, in how you're describing this. It's not just about the business, it's around having the mission that both brings value to you, financially, business wise, but also has an impact on society that's aligned with, you know, your values and what you think is important.
Nicte Cuevas 11:41
Yes, I love how you put that. And I think for me, it's because I was very lucky to go to an international school. I had friends from everywhere, I had friends from Nigeria, two of my closest friends were Korean, Venezuela. And so for me, it was normal to embrace diversity. And when I came to the States, that's where the big culture shock was, like, we were all kind of in a little groups. And it was unheard of. And I could tell that people felt uncomfortable, if I would go and hang out, I was in a sorority, and I had would hang out with an Indian fraternity, one of my friends were Indian, and I would go hang out with him. And I was, I just loved those experiences, because that's what I grew up with. I was very, very lucky to have a unique experience. So for me, doing this work isn't about creating separation. I know sometimes too with trauma, we, we tend to feel like well, people don't know, they would never understand, let me separate myself or it's a Latino thing, you would never understand that. And if we're trying to help people, understand our culture, understand our heritage, understand our backgrounds, being more open about helping others understand and not making them feel bad for asking questions, because they genuinely might want to learn and might not know how to ask the right way. But we need to find that balance. And I for one, am one that I want to celebrate our diversity and our culture and the differences that make us so rich and unique. Because there's just so much that we can learn from one another like you're saying with foods, I remember that my my friends we were talking about, I still keep in touch with my friends from back home. And my Korean friends, I used to always beg them for their lunch. And my poor friends were saying you would always take our lunch and you would just be asking us with a puppy eyes to have our food! I was like, I'm so sorry. But it was, you know, it's such a beautiful experience that I miss. And a lot of us from our school still talk about that, that it's so different. That, you know, we, it was it was a privilege that I was able to experience that and I just wish that we see that here in the US but we don't embrace it. Like I was kind of taught to, and lucky to be able to experience that and I feel that everyone's lives would really be impacted. If we learn to think about the young kid that's new one school is different, but and let me learn about them. Let me ask let me invite them to these things, not separate them because they don't look like us. Or we might feel uncomfortable because they don't look like us or we wouldn't know how to approach them. I think it just takes that step into really, really being inclusive that way.
Erica D'Eramo 14:33
Yeah, it's it's interesting too, because even within the US different regions are quite different in how in what the norm looks like. And so I mean, it's interesting to hear Houston because ironically for me, having lived in Houston for so many years, I just became so normalized to you know, any any room you walk into any restaurant you go to, it's like an absolute quilt of different nationalities, different cultures. And that's just what you become used to. And then moving back up to the northeast, again, like, I never noticed it when I first lived here, just how monochromatic it can be, until you're, until that's not the norm anymore. And you look around and you're like, literally every single person in this restaurant is a white person, every single person, this is so strange. So, but I think if you're, if that's what you're used, you don't even notice it until you're removed from that environment. And it changes, right. And then that becomes the new norm. So yeah,
Nicte Cuevas 15:46
I love how you said that. I think it's we take these beautiful things for granted sometimes and and then it just when it's taken away from you, I feel like you lose a little bit of your identity. So you find ways to bring that identity back no matter where you go. So yeah, I think it's powerful to be aware of those things. And it really makes us reflect to on being more present in what we do day to day. Even with work. Sometimes it's hard to do that. But I think that that it all ties into the work that we do, our brand stories, how we navigate the day to day of our business, it's being more aware of those moments in the stories that we can tie in, not just with ourselves, but with our audience, and really kind of making it more of an inclusive thing.
Erica D'Eramo 16:37
Yeah. And when as we're talking about like our audience, as business people, I think that this still extrapolates to people who might be within an organization who are either a team leader or a leader within the organization, or even an individual contributor, because we're all managing some sort of brand, right, we're either managing the brand of our team within an organization, or we're managing our own personal brand within that organization, and influencing the brand of the team in that regard. And, and ultimately reflecting the brand of the the entire organization, even if we're just a small part of it, like we've, we've seen how much an individual can impact the brand of a company one way or another. So I do want to like tie that together for folks who are listening and might be like, "Well, I'm not a business owner. So this doesn't apply." I think it still absolutely applies, like how we connect to others and how we tell our stories.
Nicte Cuevas 17:35
Absolutely, I love that you weave that in because it is, I think it's the power of, of our own stories of who we are, can really impact brands in so many ways. So you might not have a brand, you might not be a business owner, but you would work for someone sharing these moments where like, "Hey, how about we we pivot and think things differently in this process that we're doing?" It kind of helps you shift that narrative. And you can say, share some experiences that you might be used to from your community. And in your culture, if your organization is looking to find ways to build more of a team collaboration, bring things from your culture, bring things that you might never know how these people could really love that experience and something different, something new. And I think what is so powerful about this is that it's almost as if we can travel the world without necessarily traveling, we're living through that person's experience, and what they're sharing, and being able to have those conversations are very powerful.
Erica D'Eramo 18:41
Yeah. So that that kind of brings me to the piece around working together because initially, I reached out because I was just desperate to get a new slide pack, right like that. I was like, "I broke Keynote. I don't know how to do Keynote. I just need help please. I can't have any more like late nights battling formatting in Keynote." So, especially having spent most of my career in industry where I would use all Microsoft products where and I it was so hard for me to find something so the I reached out in this like moment of, please just I just need help with this very specific tactical piece. And then what we ended up doing was so much bigger and broader than that. So can you talk our listeners through like, what does it look like to work with you? How did we get from, "Can you help me with some slides?" to you know, like, "What impact am I trying to have?"
Nicte Cuevas 19:39
I love that question. I think it's so important for us when we are doing any type of work with the foundation of what we do is really understanding our clients and what their pain points are definitely which is a big reason why they reach out and helping them fulfill a certain vision or helping them through that communication piece. But in order for us to do that, we need to dig deep and see what are all the surface level language that we're using. But then that's when we start to dig in deeper. Why would you share this? Or how does your audience react to this? Have you realized that this particular product resonates more with your other audience? So it's we're looking at all these elements in a separate form and bring it together into what becomes a brand strategy. So you look at what is your written language that you're sharing? What are your values? How is that expressed internally and externally? What are what are the impacts that you're trying to build in how that connects to your brand promise, and your future goals? I'm not very big on what is your next goals for the 10 years and have it all spelled out because I feel sometimes life happens. And we need to be a little bit of flexible with transition and change. But still having that core foundation of here's who we are, here's what we want to do. Here's how we're different to what other people are doing their work in the market, and really going into that self reflection. So I help my clients go through that self reflection process. And in that, I've had a lot of my clients say, Well, I know this might sound off, or I might be saying too much. I'm like, No, it's those. Those are the moments where we say things that fuel your brand story that bring that clarity. And then I take all those messages, all of these things that when we started working together, that's a big part of the process that we did. And we ended up spending more time because I really wanted to dig deep into that core foundation, and all of those elements, then we translate it into how can we leverage this through the visual communication, which is heavily on color. So we defined the brand values, the language and these emotions that we wanted to represent your brand, or the brand that people are trying to do for themselves, and how that connects to the audience. So finding that intersection and using color to help express that. And we even got into the strategy, which I love doing this is that we would pinpoint certain colors to certain emotion. So as you were building content, you were able to pinpoint, Okay, this is the language that we're using this is the emotions that we really want to connect with and really help our audience. And we leverage those colors strategically, they're part of your brand. But they're strategically done. So it goes beyond the kind of, we kind of like see the surface level, you know, the the prettiness of things. And it's really going into the brains of how our brand can operate, and how we can really foster that strong first impression, but keep your audience coming back because you're helping them fulfill something that they are seeking. And so that's what the process really involves. So anytime we're going to do any work for our clients, we really want to ask them, Do you guys have a brand strategy? Do you have a clear mission and vision and typically, it even as you've been in business for a long time, you need to refine these because you evolve, you grow, you might have different products or services your team might grow. So it's good to do these. And I've always found that my clients feel a lot more aligned after doing that, and then the work that comes from that pulls on the strategy. And then you're able to really speak more powerful. Powerfully, I don't know if that's a word, but if it is, I just made it. But yeah, really just hone in on the power of your story in a way that reflects you and your audience and how you're really wanting to impact them, whether it's through your products or services, or even if you are a speaker in itself too. These are such powerful ways for you to really align yourself into that. And I think that through that process, that's where you were saying some of the things were the the Keynote deck and the colors and having that structure. Usually when I hear clients say structure, that is key words for me, Okay, let's let's dig deeper to see where else can we build and find that structure to build things together. And that's where we came about that strategy. And really just ever, I think every brand really needs to have a solid strategy before they go into design because design. And I'm a designer by trade. But design is not meant to take the leading role. It's meant to support what you're talking about. So it needs to be aligned because you can't have pretty designs but the language in itself is like meh, you know, that's super powerful. So you need to have that alignment in every single element and look at the details. I love the details. I feel sometimes there's a hidden message in the details. And that's part of what a brand strategy will do.
Erica D'Eramo 25:00
Yeah, I mean, that was one of the reasons that I loved even our initial conversations was because I could geek out about our fonts. And you understand, you were able to, like, "Yes, I understand why you love these fonts and why they're important to you," like, like the serif on this, and then, you know, no sarif on this one, and the colors too were very meaningful. And you asked me about the plover bird and I kind of, you know, I don't really talk about the, the plover like why there's a plover on all of our branding, or even the name Two Piers a lot of people ask, like, where did that come from? Why Two Piers, and there's so much in there and so much around that that was important. It was intentional and thoughtful. And there's a lot of symbolism there. There's a lot of symbolism in the shapes we use, and the four primary colors that we picked. And trying to balance the different audiences that were serving and where they're at. Right, all of that was very intentional and thoughtful. And so it did make it tougher though, when it came to a point where I was like, "Oh, we're ready for something new, I need more paints to use in my palette, I need more a bit more ways to flex and express and communicate," especially now that we're shifting to so much more educational content and reaching broader audiences. And so you, like, queued right in to what I was saying and, and my wavelength on that, I really appreciate that.
Nicte Cuevas 26:35
I love that. And I love that your plover story in there, when you were sharing that I was like I was trying to write and I was trying to remember everything because that story for me is something that made you so unique and so different, and the symbolism behind the colors. And I think sometimes we don't realize how much as humans, we're always looking for symbols. Perfect example: clouds. We go look at a clouds and we're wanting to look for shapes, we're always wanting to look for some sort of shape. Or if you see a shadow, you might think like, oh, what does that shadow look like? So our brains are naturally wired to look for symbols. And part of it is a cue for survivalism to kind of like back in the day, how we would look for these symbols just to make sure that we are surviving or just being able to be safe. And of course, our needs have evolved back to what it used to be. But in forms of communication, we're always looking for the symbols. And your story about the plover and really being this, this in the symbiotic relationship really connected so much to what your brand strategy was about, but also to how you help your clients. And this conversation that we were having earlier, and how we can celebrate one another, to shine bright, through our own differences. And know that makes us powerful. And our story should be heard just as much as the next person. So really just elevating people. And one of the conversations that I loved that we had during the process were was you were telling me about the plover bird and the symbiotic relationship with a gator and how would in terms of when we're thinking about, Oh, what if one of this bird gets eaten? Because it would potentially be food, but it doesn't. And it kind of works with the the gator and you know, cleans its mouth. Essentially. If we think about how in life, sometimes we run like that we might be in environments where it's hostile. And we feel like we might not make an impact. Why should we say anything. And when you were sharing this moment, I thought this is exactly how you help your clients. You help your clients find the symbiotic relationship, no matter what they're navigating in life and learning to uncover the power almost bring the light. One of the shapes that you had in your branding was this nice like triangle that was around the shape of the Gator which I was geeking out over because those for me are the symbols that are so powerful, and really shining the light on that too, as well with the messaging and how that's how you can help people. So it's all these things that we don't necessarily notice that we process or we notice as we're consuming content. But there's so important in shaping that perception of the brand and how we remember a brand or a person or an experience and really tying that together. So I loved when you shared that story with me and that was something that we had a good conversation about really leveraging the power of the plover in so much of what you do and your your company and also the tie to being around the ocean. For so many communities, that ocean is grounded in survival, but it's also a place of healing for many, it's a place of exploration possibility. So really tying in so much meaning and in a really deeper form allowed us then to expand your color palettes as well, to give you more options in how you're bringing everything together for as you're growing and what's come what's coming for the next five years for your brand. So that was just super exciting to do.
Erica D'Eramo 30:32
Yeah, yeah. The piece around the plover I think a lot of people don't necessarily recognize that that's an Egyptian plover. And that the Egyptian plover tends to hang out in the mouths of crocodiles and doesn't get eaten. And so that like hanging out in the, in the mouths of crocodiles and surviving, and you know, finding what you can take from that. That is, yeah, how we kind of see ourselves operating in this world. And the colors around the blue, you know, the blue being like a calming blue, but still tied to the ocean. The yellow being like a source of light, you know, like a lighthouse are a source of brightness and support, sort of a beacon. And then the the charcoal and the like, a grayish white those, those are like the lightness and the darkness and the in the structure and the support. So all of those tied together. But you're right it let us then look to broaden in a way that tied in like more earth tones and more of these natural colors that you see. When you approached me about like, how do you feel about green and about, you know, that natural element, it resonated for me, because the whole part about Two Piers, right is that we are a safe place to find some stability to like, come and find that safeness. And, you know, reinvigorate, tie up your boat, get some food, get some fuel, get some warmth, and then go back out there on the water. But that green was kind of tying us to that landmass that we provide, and that that like grounding that we can provide. So yeah, I love that you brought that into the into the mix.
Nicte Cuevas 32:26
I love that. And I love how you just already tied in the colors to like, this was such a great fit for you with that exploration that we did, that you are just going and exploring this without necessarily having to reference what the color palette is. And this is essentially for people who are listening, this is the power of doing that brand strategy, because you look at all your elements. And you essentially don't want to refer to your colors as just like, oh, what's the color value? It's more of that emotion as you were just sharing that. And that is how we really can ground ourselves in our story. And it also helps ease that overwhelm that people feel when they have to create content for like social media, and it kind of really helps you. Oh, how do I tie this into my story? This is my story. Okay, here's the things that I know I need to leverage within my messaging to support that story. So I love and I love that you were very flexible, because I think that that is important in the exploration phase is what could be a possibility. And then we hone in on Okay, these would work these would not work. And I do a lot of exploration on the back end before I propose it because I want to see how does this interact with the primary colors that we had that were so important to the leading story? How does it support it, there was one color palette that when I was in the process of figuring out how this ties into the strategy was one of the purples, and it wasn't a very saturated purple. But it was a purple that connected to being a visionary and exploring ideas, leadership loyalty. And it was a color that really felt connected to some of the things that you do in your work from working with leaders, but also helping leaders see new possibilities. So having these colors can help shift our openness during specific processes. So I when I propose it to you, I was explaining like, here's how we could use it for the work that you're doing. And it felt so great, because you found that natural transition of Oh yeah, that makes sense. And then when we apply that into your Keynote deck, everything really came together because we were able to say, here's where we're using these colors strategically. Here's how we're using this to build stories. Here's where we're using those greens to kind of really, it's kind of like planting that seed that idea that nurturing growth and it's tapping into these emotions that we as humans might just perceive day to day. And know at the back of our minds. These are the colors that can make us feel this way. We're tying that into your story.
Erica D'Eramo 35:16
Yeah, I mean, I associate the purple with, well, first of all, purple happens to be my favorite color, even though I do a lot of blues. And that might be because that's like the school I went to is all blue. But I love purple. And purple to me is like knowledge and wisdom. And there's something around purple that so it works perfectly in the slide deck to indicate sort of, hey, knowledge point here. This is this is learning time right here. Yes, yeah. And training people's like, association with that as they get more and more of this content to know, like, purple indicates knowledge point, right?
Nicte Cuevas 35:58
Yes, I love that you said that because it is true. It's, I call it it's a powerful, subtle way to be salesy without being salesy, especially for like in terms of social media content, where you want people to get to know you, over time, people will learn to associate, "oh, this is a knowledge bite, this is something that would be great for me to listen to." Or if you're looking for more empowering content or content that's going to make you feel more joyful, more looking at possibilities, then people start to consume your content differently, versus when we just slap everything with all sorts of rainbow colors, unless that's exactly what your brand is about. We lose some of that meaning by not being strategic.
Erica D'Eramo 36:43
Yeah. In all things, I'm certain but definitely, especially when trying to grow a business. I think it's really important for us to spend our time and energy were like, in our zone of genius, you know, and where we are most impactful. And certainly, we need to know the basics around, you know, like, I had to learn accounting to some extent, I don't plan to become an accountant, but I needed to know that like base level. But this area was something that, you know, as a person with an engineering background, it's not that I'm not creative, right, I think I'm actually quite creative. My creativity is more in perhaps writing and in perhaps food like that, those have been my creative outlets. But the design element, I always felt like that was a barrier for me to be able to communicate with my audiences, because it's, it's not what I have training in. It's not where he feels super comfortable. And so the exertion of energy to just try to get to a point where I can communicate with people where I'm not in the room, right, I'm not there to share the language, or the tone of voice or the engagement, eye contact, I need to do that all through design and through colors. And so this was an area where, you know, deciding when you need help, this is the area where I, I needed help to make sure that I wasn't losing too much of our message or losing too much of our impact by not being able to have this. So, you know, I've talked a lot about like Two Piers, version one, version two, version three, I feel like we're entering version three, where this is more fine tuning this and being able to explore how we communicate with people. And that's not just for this entity, right? That That goes for, like I said, teams who are needing to communicate internally, or people who are doing their own, you know, resume their own their own development plan that they're talking to their boss about so. So tell me, how can people how and when should people work? Be working with someone like you?
Nicte Cuevas 38:58
Oh, I love that question. I think that it has to get to the point where you know, you need help. And it's hard. I think sometimes especially as women, it's hard for us to feel Okay sometimes to ask help, because I think sometimes I am guilty of it. You think no, I gotta do this myself. Because I just got to do this myself. No one's telling you to, but you just kind of have this bad wheel of habit that it's better sometimes to hire someone who's an expert who can guide you through this process. And you'll end up being it's an investment but you end up being on a better side because you are not no longer wasting time trying to figure things out. And you're back in your zone of genius like you were saying, doing what you do best is a better investment of your time and bringing in people who help you in other areas is only going to help you grow. The key part is that it all depends on what phase you are in. So I love that you're saying this is kind like your third iteration like where you really, you're, you're fine, you're finessing everything, you're kind of really bringing things closer and closer and closer together. And that takes time. I know, usually within that first year of starting something new, a lot of things change, because you're processing everything you're trying to figure out what language to use, how would this look like. So usually, in the first year, I always I have resources on my website that people can download for free. Some of them are through my courses, which they're very affordable. But I tried to provide insight for people who are just starting off, that's going to help them have a more solid ground. And that solid ground is really taking the time to define who you are. And honoring that honoring every single part of you. And even if you are building a business, that it's not necessarily a personal brand, or you're working for someone else, knowing how that can influence others, and how that can kind of seed, whatever iteration you're turning that into, that is super powerful. So starting with that, and being Okay with learning and expanding in those first couple of years. Usually, by the first second year, you already know, here's the things that I know that haven't worked, that are working, but I really kind of need to quite explore. Because you can, I can do deep level brand strategy. But when we're in that phase of rebuilding, remoulding, figuring things out, things will still shift. And you will likely then either go back to something that you were doing in the beginning because out of comfort, or you will go off track. So it all depends on the person, too, you know, if you're... I love that you were an analytical because I think this process really aligned with who you were, which was great. So it depends on the person, if you do like these things, and yes, and you like to have that clear direction, and you're able to stay within that, that could really help you out. But you might get more insight when you have explored more of these options. And doing that, because what tends to happen is when we start something new, we have all these great ideas, but being able to say, hey, this idea is really great. But we might not be able to do this. Now, maybe let's table this later. Or this is a great idea. But it just does not align at all with what we want to do. Perfect example, for me, I in my have side, mom's side of family, a lot of them are fashion designers. I'm the one that went to into graphic design. Yes. So there, I didn't really connect with fashion because I wasn't really good at sewing, my mom tried to teach me and I'm kind of getting into it. But I've always wanted to do pattern designs or like clothing design of like, you know, the colors and all these things. But if I went and did that right now, that completely shifts my business direction and the strategy that I have. So it's one of those, hey, that's a great idea. But it really doesn't align with what I'm doing. And that's what's so important to be able to do in the beginning. Because starting a business is an investment, like you're saying you had to learn to be your own accountant, we wear so many hats. Even in a company where you're working for someone, I'm sure there's a lot of people in your audience who technically have one position, but they fulfill three, four or five roles in that one position. And they're wearing all these hats. So the more overwhelm you add to yourself and thinking about all these ideas and not really seeing one through the harder it's going to be to stay the path stay the course. But it's important to self reflect, I think that that's in the realm of everything that I'm trying to share is being self aware. And knowing that, yes, I really do need this guidance to be able to stay the course and stay strong, explore all the options and be able to test this one option out long enough to know, hey, this worked, or this didn't work. And not just try it out for a couple of weeks or a month or so and then abandon ship. So there's that level of strategy that needs to happen. But it's also the investment of your time. That needs to happen in those early stages. When you are a little more seasoned, you have more data to back you up more things that you've tried that no doesn't work. And it you get a better result out of that I've noticed with with the brands and a lot of brands come to me or small business owners for a lot of rebranding because they've gotten to that point where they have evolved or they need to go to the next stage and they know what has worked, what hasn't worked and we're able to do deeper work because of that.
Erica D'Eramo 44:56
Yeah, yeah, I think yeah, that really resonates because when I came to you, it was like, I didn't. I knew I needed a refresh. But not necessarily a rebrand, like I liked what we had, I was really attached to the colors, like, I can recognize the hex codes.
Nicte Cuevas 45:17
I love that
Erica D'Eramo 45:18
I could talk forever about our fonts, and you know the plover and everything. And so it was working for us. It's just I needed more flexibility. And I needed, you know, more more notes to use in my in my musical scale. But I also think that there were a lot of revelations that have come and like I said, we've, we've had to pivot and explore as we go. And initially, I started out with Two Piers just wanting to do like, what I thought was coaching, it was probably more like mentoring, to support individual women, and to create, like workshops for people to sign up and attend, because that's what I had been looking for and what I had been missing. But it soon became clear that a it wasn't just women, it was really anyone who doesn't fit the mold. And that's actually a lot of like, many, many people don't fit the mold, even plenty of straight white cisgender, men don't fit the mold. So how to thrive when you don't, quote, fit the mold. And then also, it just didn't feel ethically sustainable for me to focus all of my energy on sort of the bandaids of, of giving people the skills to conform to their environment without addressing, hey, we need to, in the long term, change the environment. So you know, that meant going from just B to B, I'm sorry, from just B to C, you know, direct to to consumers to B to B as well with a consulting element to try to impact the root cause of this. And all of that changes. The culture, like all of that chain has impacts on the branding, and how you relate to companies, how you relate to individuals, how masculine the colors are, how feminine, the colors are, like, warmth, coolness, all of that ties in, but those are things I needed to learn over time with trial and error. And now we're really seeing again, I always sort of assumed that our audience would be mostly women, because I talked so much about, you know, these strategies to be effective when you're coming from a marginalized identity. And the more I learned about our audience, the more I realized that this is resonating for men, right, like a significant percentage of the people who sign up for our workshops are men. Half of our listenership is men. And so that changes too, you know, sometimes you have your target audience, but the audience that shows up actually, the audience that finds the value in what you have to offer is your audience. That is the audience. So might as well make that the target audience.
Nicte Cuevas 48:15
Absolutely, and I love how you you shared your story. And one of the things you were saying earlier is how you're saying we don't want to put band aids on solutions, because it's not really a solution. I love how you said that. Like I immediately visualize that. And I feel what's so powerful about the work that you do is because you're kind of just like, Okay, let's remove the band aid. Let's see how we can explore our environments, how can we stand out and I really feel that what's been happening with with men in general is that even they are conditioned to what the society expects of them that you will always care men aren't supposed to cry, or they're not supposed to be emotional. And they have to be solid as a rock, which is so hard to put that on people because at the end of the day, we are human, there are times when we might not feel happy, we might feel down we need to be able to express ourselves. So no one should be confined to these boxes or expectations. And I think that that's what the power is in how you share these stories and the work that you do is that you build relatable or you talk about relatable content, that's true the experiences, but then you also provide strategies into how they can improve that it's not of, "oh, yes, we all experienced this." And then that's all you get. And I think what's really powerful that is that because I think men tend to be a little bit more analytical in here. Here's the situations here's a possible solution. For us women, sometimes we we do see that but there's the emotional part in between that we try to process so I feel that you provide that in different scales and levels for your audience. So that is just powerful. And one of the things too, that in the colors, we wanted to make sure that it was inclusive to your community. And it was empowering at the same time, which was all part of the process.
Erica D'Eramo 50:20
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So as as you go through your work with folks, and as you've kind of come up through this learning curve, in your audience, what would you say some of the common like myths or misconceptions are that you encounter in your work?
Nicte Cuevas 50:41
Hmm, ooh, that's a great question. I think sometimes people underestimate the value of design, that and it goes both sides, that they don't really need powerful design to tell their story to visualize their communication. And then the other flip side is that they want it to be the rock star and the shining star and all these bells and whistles, but then the messaging falls flat, or when they work with a person, they don't get that same experience. So we really need to think about how design influences that experience. How is that experience consistent and that it's not bells and whistles, whistles and flashy design is really thinking about all of these elements. And one of the things that I many things that I loved about working with you was your love for the fonts. So one of your fonts is Mrs. Eaves and I absolutely adore adore adore the font is beautiful. Its elegant, but it's not where you feel like it's so delicate in a way where it's just it just feels sturdy. Empowering, yes, like I'm here, I'm confident I am Mrs. eaves like that is just, I love, I love that attention to detail. And all of these elements in design are part of your brand. Fonts. A lot of people don't think or typefaces like which is like the font family, they are part of your brand personality that connects to the message. So if you're using type that, for instance, is very cursive, very hard to read, especially in terms of accessibility, that is going to influence the perception that people have on your brand, and especially too in social media where the content is just going really, really fast. That is something that we need to think about how can design help us better tell our story, and it needs to be aligned where you don't want to provide a Disney experience in the front light of what you're doing. But on the back end, when people work with you. It's kind of like, oh, well, we don't have time for this, or Oh, that's not really what we're promising. Because that needs to be aligned in in what you're sharing. So really embracing design and how it can help you, but also not overcomplicating things so much that when you are strategic in how you define your design elements, you can start to get more intentional about the content. It's everything that you do. From whatever you're sharing for your brand story. You need to think about your intention. And I always tell this to my clients when it comes to building branded templates, the intention, branded templates can be really powerful in helping you really tell your story in a more intentional way without reinventing the wheel creating new templates or grabbing the latest trending template, because everyone and their mother is using it on social media. So it must really help you. That's not the point is how is this particular design going to support this area of my business or this area that I'm trying to communicate? So even for presentations to and in the business world, for your audience, thinking about? How is this graphic going to help me tell a better story, or if you're using data, how is this particular graphic or color, going to support what I'm trying to pitch or what I'm trying to prove from this data. It's all of these elements that are kind of like that layered cake. That at the end is this if you mishmash too many things that don't make sense it ends up not being good. But if you put the right ingredients that are carefully thought out, you can create this really delicious experience and I'm kind of putting it through food because sometimes when we think about design in a more generic way, it's easier to understand so thinking about those experiences. The other way too is you don't want to mix and match so many things because it just looks off so you want to wear a business suit, and a cowboy hat and a cap sideways and nail polish on one hand and really long nails on the other and two different types of shoes like no one, whatever show up. And that's how often a lot of brands show up with their designs, because they're still exploring, which is totally fine. But that's where you need to hone in and say, "What is the message I'm trying to convey? How am I using colors to help that?" And why should I just not really try and focus and narrow my content to have specific elements support specific areas of your messaging, or like your your content pillars, or your mission, or your presentations, all of these elements are super important. And I think that if you can start thinking more about design in a strategic support system, and how every element is a piece of communication, you'll start to see things function better, or you'll start to notice, oh, this doesn't really help, the spot might be too hard to read, let me look at something else that's going to be a little bit more accessible. And these colors are just, I'm starting to get a little bit that that jarring effect, maybe I need to change this because someone else might not be able to see this, or read this. And we have a lot of tools out there now that help us check these elements. And that's really powerful to invest the time to do that.
Erica D'Eramo 56:15
Yeah, I love the parallel with food. Because as you're talking, I really am hearing like, you know, the balance come into play and a little bit of acid, a little bit of salt or more of this, you know more of that. But the whole point is that it has to be cohesive and work together to deliver what you're wanting somebody to be able to consume. And that's what's happening, right, that you're setting out a plate of content, or information for somebody that you want them to be able to consume it. And you want as few barriers as possible, and as much of it with as much enjoyment as possible.
Nicte Cuevas 56:52
Yes, yeah, absolutely. Because that's how we remember those experiences. over some that were like, Okay, it was underwhelming, but then you kind of just move on, but you hold on to those ones that made you feel something. And emotion is just such a powerful driver, because we do everything based on emotion. How the foods made us feel it could bring us back to our childhood, or smells or environments, or how someone impacted us really deeply. There's emotion at the root of it all. It's just sometimes we're just on the go so much that we don't process it. But it's there. When you start to look at it. It's always there.
Erica D'Eramo 57:35
Yeah, yeah, that's really impactful. So where do you typically see, companies or organizations struggle with this work, and especially when it comes to culture, because I love the I love your content on LinkedIn, actually, there's so much educational content that helps people understand the impacts of not just the effectiveness of some of these colors, but like, using stock images, you know, like, so, if you were to highlight where you see organizations struggling, what what do you think that would be?
Nicte Cuevas 58:10
Oh, that's, gosh, do we have two more hours now, just kidding. I, I feel culture and color, are... and the visual representation of communities, through stock is, is a big issue. And I've learned that when you work internally, budgets, is always going to be one of the impeding factors, sometimes of what things get used. And I know that when I worked in corporate America, but also when I became my own business, I had my own budgets. So that really made me be a little bit more aware. And sometimes a little bit understanding of, I get budgets create a limitation. But if we're going to, let's say, for instance, you stock images, we have to do the research to make sure that we are not misrepresenting a culture in a community. And for me, one of the things that I used to get frustrated about was seeing how much content there is for specifically for like Latinas and Hispanic women and how we're portayed as the angry Latina or look a certain way and within our community, we have Afro Latinos, we have Asian Latinos, we have Indigenous communities. We are and we have people who are descendants of Europeans. So we are so mixed, we don't look a certain way. And sometimes people don't really think that and see that. I have a lot of my friends who are Afro Latinos, that people say you can't be a Latina, you're Black, and she's like, No, I am Afro Latina. I am both. Don't tell me what to pick, which is really hard. And so being again, we kind of go back into people confining us to boxes. And so having that thought and congruent and conversation almost with yourself with the people who are picking this content is saying, is this really representing the community? Are we really including everybody. And the key point is when you are looking at stock images, look at the keywords, because I have seen so much keyword stuffing. And that's where a lot of the biases happen. Where I've seen when you look up the word Latina, and you look at some of the descriptors, angry, Latina, Latina angry, Latina late Latina whatever, like, it's these biases that you're seeing through this keyword stuffing. And I know that photographer is just wanting to boost their sales. But it's not right. And while the stock foundries can't possibly monitor these things, because they're running millions of stock assets, it's really hard. So you can work with organizations or companies who are at a smaller scale, who do provide more of a thoughtful and intentional stock photography for like communities of color, for instance, working with those organizations can really be powerful. And yes, you do have to invest in the stocks, but you're actually getting things that are going to share a more positive message for this community. Because at the end of the day, people want to feel seen, heard and understood. And if we are being sold to or presented content, that is biased, you're going to get the flip side of reaction where people are going to get angry, and they're going to feel well, you're just trying to sell me a product, you're not really trying to get to know me or respect my culture and my value. So it's important that if your company organization doesn't have the budget to work with the agency, that might be more money, but people like myself was smaller business, a smaller team can help you through that. And if you don't have the budget for that, then you need to make sure you dedicate enough time to research and vet your sources. Just because it's on a very well known stock photography site doesn't mean that what you were being shown is accurate and is correct. And you want to be very careful, especially with communities, cultural communities who are more quiet and reserved, because that's part of their nature. They may not speak up. And I think for some of the I, I've particularly learned a lot from Black communities who have taught me to be more, "No share your voice help educate," because they've been through so much that they have decided, "No, we need to voice our concerns." And I have felt that the more we can empower others without excluding others, or making others feel that they are less for, sometimes they make mistakes. And sometimes it's very evident that they are doing it on purpose. And I've chosen to "Well, that's not the path I want to go. I really want to help the people who want to listen, who want to learn." But it's about doing that research. It's about dedicating that time, not just a five minute Google search and saying Okay, here's what we're going to post, because it's not always going to be accurate and correct and the work gets trickier and harder. But it's more meaningful when you're able to really take the time to build communities together. And the same thing goes with colors, trying to relate to communities of color, by using certain color biases is is a big downfall. Hispanic communities is one of the big examples to where we're often portrayed with a lot of the maracas like the little rattlers or the sombreros or cactuses to represent all our community. And that is typically some of the things that you see within the Mexican heritage, but it's really not because that's not what for me on my Mexican side, what I know, like there's food, there's colors, and we're so much more than what the general consensus is being shown. So, again, it's about digging deeper, and really telling a bigger story that people aren't telling and connecting with your audience. Also connecting with people of that community who are experts who can help you navigate those sources is an invaluable resource. Invaluable resource.
Erica D'Eramo 1:04:34
Yeah, that's one of the primary drivers I think, for many organizations in fostering diversity and having a representative workforce. Is that having a workforce that is representative... Some people ask me like, "What do you mean by representative?" I mean, that is, your workforce demographically looks similar to the audience that you're trying to reach and serve. And so having the voices having the diverse set of voices to be like, "hey, yo, that's offensive, like we shouldn't do that, right?" So often when I see these campaigns come out, I'm like, Oh, I'm like, Oh, no one, they didn't have anyone on the team that noticed that this would not go down well? That tells me a lot, right? That there was no voice on the team. Either it didn't exist, or it wasn't empowered enough to speak up. So.
Nicte Cuevas 1:05:31
Yes, I love that you said that "empowered enough," because I've heard some times when you see these examples, and I don't want to unnecessarily call out the brand. But there have been big major brands that have been made really, really huge mistakes. And it's baffling, like you said that they let it get away. But I've seen sometimes designers go and say, "Well, you know, I've been a part of a similar situation, and I brought it up, but the so and so and the next higher up said, 'hey, you know what, no, that's totally fine, we will be okay with it,'" or they kind of shut their voice down. And so that's hard. Because if we're not changing internally, and when someone does have a voice, and does want to share that, but it's being dismantled or treated as like, this doesn't matter, then, you know, what else can you do? So it is, it's so important to have that representation, and really making sure that we are effectively communicate to other communities in a positive manner without biases. And I think it's also important that we can't expect one person from a community to know everything about every single community, because that is a very big issue within the DEI space is that they're expecting a one person department to be the entire department and know everything about everyone, which is impossible.
Erica D'Eramo 1:07:01
Tokenism is bad.
Nicte Cuevas 1:07:03
Yes, oh yes.
Erica D'Eramo 1:07:06
Yeah.
Nicte Cuevas 1:07:06
It is. And that's very sometimes prevalent too within stock imagery, I've kind of pointed that out to look at body language to when you are looking at, even in environments too when you are giving a presentation and someone you're presenting an image or a visual that is towards that community. Look around the room. And if there's someone in your business or in your in your team that looked uncomfortable, they might be the person that might not feel they might be an introvert, and they might not want to say, "Hey, this is really bad," or they might have been shut down in the past to not say anything. Look at that. Because those are silent cues, that someone is feeling uncomfortable with something that you presented. And it's important to address and see, was it the language was it because sometimes it's just the written language, it could be the visuals, and I think visuals are the ones that people still not catching, the language has started to shift. But it's the visual sometimes that is still has the underlying biases, and tokenism and just we need to do that extra work, because it matters is not of a necessity. It's because it matters. And it brings people together. And when people feel together, they're more happy. They'll consume more, and we just have a better experience in life instead of trying to struggle and prove our worth, which just it's very draining to do.
Erica D'Eramo 1:08:37
Yeah, absolutely. Right. This comes back again to the effectiveness of like finding what is effective, this isn't. There's so much narrative now about like, woke this and woke that which that terminology is completely misused. But this idea that but by being considerate and empathetic to the audiences that you're trying to literally sell to that somehow that's weak or Yeah. Which No, it's it's effective. It's also right, like both morally and ethically right. And it is effective for business.
Nicte Cuevas 1:09:13
Yes, absolutely. And I think people struggle embracing that, because some people greed, you know, they're just wired for what is going to bring them more money. And if that is someone that is within your realm, or you're trying to get that higher up to see the different side, well tell them, If we connect with our audience better and they really feel represented, they're gonna consume more of whatever we're producing or whatever we're giving out because they feel a part of it. It's again, that emotion side that you want to feel that you're a part of this group or that you're represented in the right light, and people will become loyal brand consumers and they'll tell their families and their friends. And that will give you more money. But you've got to do the right work in the beginning, and not just expect to do something like half done and be like, Oh, they won't notice it. Oh, it's not a big deal. And oh, it is a big deal. It is a big deal.
Erica D'Eramo 1:10:20
Yeah, absolutely. So if you were to give anyone well, for our listeners, if you were to to give us just like a final kind of takeaway, what would what would that be for folks? What would like the key point be that you want people to take away?
Nicte Cuevas 1:10:35
Ooh, I would say, never let anyone or anything dim your light, that you do have a powerful story to tell. But you need to ground yourself in that story and be Okay that you don't fit the mold. Find that way to shine the light, and be that empowering person that you can be in your own terms, you don't have to be loud. If you're an introvert, you can still be bold and powerful through what you do. And really ground yourself. And when you do find challenges, there's always ways that you can use communication factors through design through color, to help you navigate these stories that you're trying to tell, and live a more fulfilling life, I feel we have this one life that we have so much we can do with it, and not letting others stop you is going to help you see a brighter future. And it's just because I've been on the dark side. And I've noticed the difference it makes when you choose to let some things go, ground yourself and be Okay with that you're not going to be for everybody, but the right people are going to come and are going to feel that difference and impact that you provide.
Erica D'Eramo 1:11:55
Yes, that, that really resonates. For anyone who wants to learn more about your work, or who wants to work with you? Where can they find you? Where should they? How should they engage?
Nicte Cuevas 1:12:11
Ooh, great question. Um, I live a lot more on LinkedIn these days. So you guys can find me at Nicte Cuevas on LinkedIn. And I try to really have great conversations with people in my audience. That way I don't like to post and go. So that's where I feel like my community lives. I'm also on Instagram too at Nicte Creative Design. And to work with me, you guys can check out my website, nictecreativedesign.com. That's where you can get a lot of access to our resources and other elements that can really help you in your business growth through branding, color, and design.
Erica D'Eramo 1:12:52
Awesome. And we will put that in the show notes as well so that people can connect, follow you and see all the great content that you share that's really supportive and helpful. So thank you so much for this conversation. I really appreciate you sharing all of your insights and your journey.
Nicte Cuevas 1:13:09
Thank you so much for having me. This has been wonderful, and I am just, I loved having this powerful conversation and I am so honored that you asked me and that we got to work together and do, be a part of your powerful work that we're doing. So thank you, Erica.
Erica D'Eramo 1:13:27
And for all of our listeners, we thank you for listening and for joining us this episode, next episode, and you can always find us on twopiersconsulting.com. You can find the transcript for this episode on our website and we look forward to seeing you soon