Brand identity for Marquez, a Texan pie & sweets shop in Dallas. The mark hides a five-point star in the negative space between five pie slices, Lone Star pride baked into every box.
The story
The challenge
Marquez has baked pies in Dallas since 1988, with a counter full of regulars and no brand to show for it. The owner wanted an identity rooted in his Texan upbringing, proud, warm and unmistakably American, without tipping into rodeo cliché.
The approach
The whole system turns on one idea: arrange five pie slices in a ring and the negative space between them forms a five-point Lone Star. That mark reads as pie and as Texas at once. We paired it with Texan-flag red, warm cream and a gold accent, a friendly high-contrast serif wordmark, and the line 'American As Apple Pie.' The star-slice shape then becomes a repeating pattern across every surface.
The outcome
Marquez rolled out across pie boxes, single-slice cartons, donut packs, takeaway bags, storefront glass, apparel and stationery, each piece built from the same star-and-slice language, so a box on a doorstep is as recognizable as the sign above the shop.
A neighborhood institution with a brand as memorable as the pie, a Lone Star hidden in plain sight, revealed the moment you cut a slice.