Mariano Araiza
Mariano Araiza
I'm a designer from Mexico, now based in Melbourne. I hold a Bachelor of Communication Design from CENTRO in Mexico City and completed my Master of Design at Monash University.
I lecture in the Master of Design at MADA across first and second semester. My teaching runs the full arc of the discipline, from core design principles through to UI and motion graphics, and is grounded in active practice. After my studies I worked across a number of design studios, including a period as Head of Brand Design, before establishing my own practice, The Family Studio, which operates across Melbourne, Mexico City, London, and Tasmania. The studio works in brand identity, editorial systems, and UX/UI for clients in fashion, hospitality, cultural institutions, and design-led startups.
I bring that practice into the studio room directly. Sitting with students forces me to articulate what the studio often runs on instinct, why this grid, why this weight, why this and not the more obvious version. The questions students ask sharpen my own thinking; the work the studio has to ship keeps my teaching honest, grounded in projects that answer to a client rather than a brief that ends. The two feed each other, and I teach from that exchange rather than from theory alone.
The studio is built around fewer projects held to a high standard of craft, with as little as possible sitting between the designer and the decision. Most of what matters happens before anything is made, in the structure, the reasoning, the argument for why a thing should exist. Execution is where that thinking gets tested.
What I want students to take from this is that design is mostly editing, knowing what to leave out, and having the discipline to stop before work turns busy, loud, or trend-shaped. I'm more interested in design that still reads in a decade than design that's clever this season, and that's the standard I hold both in the studio and in the room.