When Carlos Zamora and his family immigrated to the U.S. from Cuba by way of Ecuador in 2006, he brought with him about $7,000, his 9-month-old child, and an extra checked bag of posters. His family couldn’t believe they were paying to transport the posters, but to Zamora, they were so much more.
“The minute I arrived, I put the posters up in the apartment, and they immediately created my world,” he says. “It was emotional. A poster is like a blankie.”
Growing up in Cuba, Zamora was exposed to posters—“carteles”—seemingly at every turn. Posters are the primary means of promotion or advertising in Cuba, he says, and while at the Havana Design Institute, he studied under several professors known for their poster designs. “In the way I was educated in poster design, designers had a social responsibility—a voice,” he says. “Poster design was that bridge between design and art. It was the perfect balance because you were communicating an idea, something that was happening in a moment, or you were persuading people to do something. I grew up with this social duty toward poster design but also the love of creating something ephemeral that becomes a piece of graphic history and also the capacity of synthesis that a poster requires.”
Zamora found that poster design easily translated into marketing. “At the end of the day, a poster is a combination of typography and image,” he says. “That type of relationship between word and image is basically the root of being a good communicator and marketer. In a way, from poster design, I learned how to become a designer.”
Poster design inspired not just the name but the ethos of CARTEL, the St. Louis design firm he launched in 2020 that specializes in illustrated branding. The company uses Zamora’s love of poster design as a vehicle to distill clients’ ideas and concepts into their essence, and also brings together his distinct experiences as a designer over the past two decades. While working at Kiku Obata & Company, a boutique design firm with offices in St. Louis and London, he learned how design shapes the streets around us through wayfinding and problem-solving in urbanism. As creative director for Express Scripts, he helped evolve the company’s branding after its acquisition by Medco and, later, Cigna. And as a professional illustrator, he created designs with a unique voice and personality for national clients including Lincoln Center and Nespresso.
“That was our positioning for the initial three years of CARTEL: creating an agency that was able to illustrate, and not only create designs but also generate original art that was both iconic and memorable,” Zamora says.
Zamora refers to the creative team at CARTEL as “design-strators,” who straddle the line between designer and illustrator. In addition to developing a strategy—by understanding the market, the problem at hand, and how to talk to different audiences—they’re able to expand brand outreach by generating new illustrations for different projects. They create an illustrated world for a brand to live in, he says, which creates meaning and enhances what the design is able to do.
CARTEL works with clients in St. Louis and beyond. The company has a particular interest in promoting the arts here, working with organizations such as St. Louis Shakespeare Festival, the National Blues Museum, and Music at the Intersection. CARTEL has also helped promote equity, partnering with social justice organizations in New Orleans.
Zamora says the throughline across CARTEL’s work is in distilling the ethos of the task and figuring out how design can take them to the next level in their goals. “I always say design is dialogue,” he says. “Design is that bridge between the needs of an organization and where they want to be in their next step.”
CARTEL’s vast and vibrant portfolio is on full display in its new office in the Post Building downtown, where the company moved in early 2024. In the basement, the Paperboat Gallery displays CARTEL’s portfolio of poster work, including designs for Laumeier Sculpture Park, the St. Louis International Film Festival, and the Tennessee Williams Festival. Zamora sees the gallery as a way to celebrate the city’s cultural vibrancy.
Before moving into the space, CARTEL designed the visual identity for the Post Building (which is also home to Square), as well as the Globe Building and the Downtown North Insight District. Founded by the Globe Building, Post Building, and T-REX, Downtown North seeks to connect, attract, and retain companies in order to drive regional growth and positive social impact in the area.
John Berglund, managing partner of The StarWood Group, which led the renovation of the Post Building, says significant investments have been made in Downtown North with the goal of attracting geospatial and fintech companies to the area. CARTEL has played a major role in furthering that goal. “CARTEL has been integral to our change of messaging for this part of downtown,” Berglund says, “amplifying the positive work that has been going on with The Post, The Globe, and T-REX.”
Zamora was inspired by growth in the area, including the $1.7 billion Next NGA St. Louis campus, slated to open in 2026—and excited to help be a force for positive change downtown. He felt that CARTEL could help inform new ways of developing Downtown North. “I create brands,” Zamora says. “A brand is a belief system. I want to believe in things. People need to believe in things. I get excited when I wake up in the morning because I’m part of this group of people believing that downtown St. Louis must be better.
“And at the end of the day, I’m an immigrant. We have the resilience of building and thriving not always in the best circumstances. So it’s exciting to be part of the solution, and I encourage everybody to come downtown… Creatives, designers, makers, startups—that’s what the city needs.”
He’s also passionate about continuing to make St. Louis a welcoming place for immigrants, and CARTEL collaborates frequently with Gilberto Pinela, director of the city’s Office of New Americans.
CARTEL itself has a multicultural ethos, Zamora says, employing designers with family roots in Mexico, Hungary, Denmark, and other countries, as well as entry-level designers. “One of the things that I’ve been excited about with CARTEL is how invested they have been in growing local talent,” says Rhonda Broussard, CEO of Beloved Community, a New Orleans–based racial and economic equity consulting firm that has worked with CARTEL. “[Zamora] really has had this eye on young designers who have their own perspective on social justice, advancement, community engagement, and how to use design for good. I think there’s a real force there.”
For decades, Zamora has known the power that poster design holds. Now, he is using that power to remind St. Louisans how much there is to love about the city. “There’s an emotional connection to a poster because behind the poster, there’s always events, moments, or organizations that are trying to raise money, create awareness, or shift somebody’s perspective,” he says. “The most important thing is what’s behind the poster.”
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