HOT HOUSE: Zona Design

Design Made to Move

Michael Koegel

December 1, 2007    Source: Studio Monthly

Zoa Martinez, president and creative director of Zona Design, is a rock star in the design world. She sports a shocking-blue streak in her otherwise jet-black hair, plays an electric guitar that she keeps in her office, and refers to creative meetings as "jam sessions." "I was born in Cuba during the revolution, so naturally there’s a rebel in me," she says proudly. Zona Design, which she started in 1999 with her partner Vice President/Executive Producer Dennis Fluet, shares that radical aesthetic. You see it in Zona’s studio, a loft-like, white and titanium "art lab," and you see it in the company’s work, which ranges from television promotion to museum installations to their latest venture: designing a line of skateboards and dominoes.

What’s Their Gig?

Zona’s slogan is "Design Made to Move," which, taken at its most literal meaning, explains the skateboards. Even Zona’s logo, an arrow, instantly sums up that vision. They’ve created branding campaigns for a range of clients, including A&E Networks, Sky Italia, and Chrysler, among many others. The firm’s work is often a mixture of graphics and live action and it’s all created and shot— from concept to final production— in their new offices in the most famous building in the world: the Empire State Building.

The Cool Factor

Martinez is proud of her company’s reputation for providing "bold images, great service and immaculate production" that spills out beyond the normal boundaries of advertising and into the realm of fine art. Martinez herself is a pop artist whose work has been on display in contemporary art museums, and Zona, the firm, has an ongoing relationship with the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami. Last spring Zona designed an entire fundraising evening entitled Pop 007, a pop-art tribute to the James Bond/Casino Royale aesthetic of the 1960s that included a 60-foot wall video installation. "We had to create a graphic language that said‘Bond’ without ever being able to use the name, because we didn’t have the rights." Soon after they were back in New York creating the on-air promotions and packaging for Star Jones’ eponymous talk show on Court TV.

"My mother always said,‘Start at the top and work your way up,’" says Martinez in an attempt to explain her obvious enthusiasm for her work. Her passion manifests itself in larger-than-life gestures, images and bold colors that surround her and her team: James Bond, the Empire State Building, and the bright-blue, ten-foot-tall King Kong that cradles a 3D Zona logo in his oversized palm.

The Geek Factor

In keeping with their "design in motion" ethos, there was the little matter of moving their giant blue mascot into his home in the Empire State Building. "He was too big to fit through the door, so we wanted to hoist him up the side of the building and put him through the window," Martinez says of their foam-rubber mascot, "but the windows were too small. It’s too bad, because I would have loved to have seen him scaling up the side of the building." In the end they had to slice the poor ape in half and haul him up the stairs.

Like all rock stars, Martinez has to hit the road occasionally. She’s been a keynote speaker at "Design Thinkers," a conference in Toronto and has lectured on After Effects and design at the "Best in the SW" Conference in Albuquerque, NM, as well as the Promax/BDA State of Design Conference. And while she enjoys the lecture circuit, she prefers to create. "I’d much rather be jamming with my staff," she says. Spoken likea true rock star.