“Tijuana is a melting pot of Mexican, Central American, and South American cultures. It has always been the ‘door’ to the United States, where people from all over came to join the line for a chance to come to the States. There are Chileans, Salvadorans, Peruvians, Colombians, Brazilians, Ecuadorians, Nicaraguans, varieties of indigenous Mexicans—you name it—living there, bringing their music, food, holidays, and traditions into the scene,” Luis says. “It was a rich environment that colored my life. What I bring to the table in terms of design today are those colors. They help set me apart.”

He left Fitch, Inc. in Columbus to join a friend in Miami. They opened SHD, Strategic Hispanic Design. Fitch offered an explanation: “We were young. He had his issues; I had mine. But one thing I learned the hard way was the ‘Latin’ culture and voice is too complex to assign to all ‘Latin’ people. What the hell do Miami Cubans want with a Mexican-styled logo?”

While in Miami, Fitch and his partner won an important account: MTV Latino, a comprehensive contract from corporate identity to marketing materials. Fitch worked hard but his partner grew distracted. A break occurred. Afterwards, Fitch won national recognition for the MTV work and headhunters began calling. A division of an ad agency in Minneapolis named “Fame” hired Fitch in 1995.

From noisy, steamy, Latin Miami, Fitch went to discreet, chilly, Lutheran Minneapolis. Design-savvy and coolish Minneapolis suited Fitch and wife Carolina nicely from the beginning. At Fame, he became familiar with the numerous multinationals in the city, including Target, Pillsbury, and General Mills, each with a keen interest in reaching the city’s growing Hispanic market. But after one year, in 1996, Fitch joined John Ryan Company, a leading financial retail marketing firm. There he remained until 1999, whereupon he and Carolina, with $10,000, opened Uno to begin “branding for the new majority.”

THE FULL FITCH PITCH
In the years since, Fitch and his team of four, five, or six—depending upon the economy—have produced some terrific, ethnically distinct work. In fact, there is little in the portfolio that does not look Hispanic. A master pitchman since his days selling clothes and watches off the hood of a car, Fitch perfected his pitch, “branding for the new majority.”

Fitch freely admits that the tagline, promise, business model, mantra—whatever you wish to call it—is a measure of both fact and hyperbole, packaged inside design vocabulary deliberately and deceptively made to look unschooled, unsophisticated, and uncomplicated. It is anything but. Says Fitch, “I didn’t want a slick portfolio like everybody else. Sleek and clean is not the way most Hispanics see the world, except maybe in places like Mexico City. So I made it look bad, on purpose.”

Uno’s bad is very good. It resonates with the target market and, therefore, appeals to Fitch’s clients. Credit for this look also belongs to illustrator Anthony Russo, who, along with Fitch, is responsible for much of the company’s hand-drawn, illustrationdriven design.

What is instructive about Fitch is that he practices what he preaches. It is rare to find a design company of its size (five, today, including husband and wife) that spends as much time and money on self-promotion. When Fitch calls upon you, his arms are loaded: reprints of numerous articles testifying to Uno’s savvy and success, posters, compendiums, postcards, small brochures. It is impressive, both in terms of quantity and in terms of beauty and substance as well.

Fitch has sliced, diced, and julienned the area’s Hispanic demographics so often that he can recite population density figures, income figures, English language skill figures, and acculturation percentages, and cross reference them with other U.S. Hispanic communities in an instant. He can break down communities by national descent, and recite for you the particular vocabulary, music, food, holiday, dress and sports habits, and preferences of each. In short, Fitch knows the Minneapolis Hispanic community as well as anyone.

As for the growth and strength of Minneapolis’ Hispanic community, no one has promoted it more than Fitch. Uno regularly donates creative skills, while Fitch promotes the Hispanic District as though he were President of the Chamber of Commerce. Uno even began on the second floor right in the middle of the district’s heart and soul—the loud and bustling Mercado Central on Lake Street.

The Minneapolis Hispanic community has been good to Fitch, and Fitch has been good for it. Now he wants to take his leave.

ADIOS AMIGOS?
“I miss my culture,” Fitch says, with a note of weariness and regret. “I have been here 10 years, and I have loved it. But 7 months a year, 10 years in a row, where temperatures remain below 10 degrees Celsius? That’s not normal for me.”

Fitch also misses the wider variety of Hispanic culture found in other American cities, adding, “I miss a place where Mexican people are not so much a ‘part’ of the community as they are a driving force within the community. I want our child to experience that.” That leaves Fitch in the “partially acculturated” category of his own demographic research. He never went fully acculturated, or North American. He sold the idea of cross-cultural marketing, he touted the value of una comunidad, and he preached the gospel of building and growing the Minneapolis Hispanic market. But he never fully bought into all of it—and never will. He feels the need to go somewhere else. And who can blame him?

Today, he is reaching out to contacts in cities such as Miami, Houston, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Denver in search of options and collaborations. But he and his wife know that in leaving what they have built they are taking a risk. In Minneapolis, Fitch has been successful because he is unique among others. The obvious question for Fitch is this: In mainstream, Lutheran, progressive Minneapolis, what happens when Luis Fitch is not one of the few, richly talented, Mexican/Hispanic designers in town?

“I don’t know,” he admits. “But I guess I’m going to find out. I have to find out. Because the decision is out of my hands.” Leaving behind all that you know takes courage. Leaving behind all that you have established takes self-confidence. And a mother like Maria, who left everything behind at the age of 16 to birth a son and raise him in the streets of Tijuana, is the kind of woman who can teach you that you can do it. The rest is up to you. Adios from Minneapolis, Mr. Fitch. And buena suerte (good luck) wherever you land.