ESTUDIO CUCUY is a Milwaukee-based design collaborative conceptualized and established by Román Montoto and José A. Montoto. The brothers have collaborated on numerous creative and design endeavors over the years while each developed their own specific emphasis within and around the design disciplines. Román pursued art history and the discipline of architecture while José pursued that of graphic design and visual communication. Each have allowed their experience to overlap and integrate academia, where experimentation and innovation are key driving forces.

It was their experience growing up as part of Milwaukee’s underrepresented Chicano community that inspired this most recent focus, ESTUDIO CUCUY. This experience, coupled with their creative and design strengths in visual and built environments, have driven the brothers to develop a voice for these groups in Milwaukee; a call to appreciate, integrate, and embrace an otherwise misunderstood and tabooed history of large portion of the city’s, and nation’s, population.

ESTUDIO CUCUY’s body of work seeks to create an awareness of the culture and history of Milwaukee’s Chicano community. Here, print, time-based imagery, and spatial compositions are instrumentalized in a way that both call attention to the gravity of current cultural & social stresses as well as offer an opportunity for those outside this particular demographic to understand, embrace, and share their own contributions to the overall spectrum of ethnic expression in the city; without fear (sin miedo).