The Quentessa
the assignment >
Turning a Brand Persona into a Physical World
As part of a larger national repositioning, Qdoba developed a fictional customer persona known as The Quentessa — a strategic character meant to guide the brand’s personality, tone, and experience.
My role was to take that abstract idea and make it visible.
Working through CIG Public Relations, I was brought in to visually interpret the Quentessa through an extensive art and environmental concept developed for Qdoba prototype restaurant environments.
Rather than illustrating the persona literally, I approached the project as world-building.
The brand guidelines emphasized storytelling, sensory experience, strong point of view, and an identity meant to be felt rather than simply seen.
My assignment was to take those principles off the page and into the room.
“We were caught in a sea of sameness.”
— Lenny Comma, then Chairman + CEO, Jack in the Box
the creative challenge >
How do you make an imaginary personality feel real without ever showing her?
By the time I was brought into the project, I was told the visual execution had become a sticking point.
The team needed a large body of original, distinctive imagery that could express the Quentessa personality without relying on existing copyrighted material. The rollout was already falling behind, and the challenge was not simply to “make art.”
It was to define what this personality actually looked and felt like in the physical environment.
In addition, the assignment focused on one of the least glamorous — and therefore most interesting — parts of the restaurant: the bathrooms.
Rather than treating these spaces as an afterthought, Qdoba wanted them to carry the personality of the new brand.
The challenge wasn’t simply to decorate a restroom. It was to use art, typography, framing, texture, color, and composition to create a believable extension of the character — on time and on budget.
“I didn’t paint the character. I painted what she would have collected and lived with .”
the exploration >
The Quentessa Persona
Badass Meets Intelligentsia
Independent + Principled
Layered + Mysterious
Frank Yet Generous
Unabashedly Real
Passionate
Perfectly Imperfect
Mysterious
Badass Without Trying
A brand should leave evidence of who it is
Restraint wasn't the personality. The strategy described someone curious, layered, opinionated, sensory, adventurous, and hungry for experience. A neat row of matching artwork would never have communicated that.
The collection needed contradiction, discovery, humor, sensuality, and surprise.
What would she collect?
What would she hang on her walls?
What kinds of frames would she choose?
What would feel polished — and what would feel a little unruly?
What would reveal her personality without ever showing her face?
The original brand strategy contained an important directive: Quentessa was never meant to literally appear in the brand. She was to be ever-present through attitude, behavior, language, and experience.
That immediately shaped my approach. I didn’t need to show her. I needed to leave evidence that she had been there. The artwork became evidence of personality — suggesting curiosity, sensuality, independence, travel, humor, confidence, and a mix of refinement and rawness.
That became the creative filter for every decision.
I developed the imagery, selected frames, composed the gallery arrangements, considered scale and placement, and designed custom wallcovering to help create a layered environment.
the men's space
Controlled imperfection became part of the brand language.
Same Persona. A Completely Different World
The two environments looked entirely different, but shared the same principle: build the world, not the character.
The existing visual system already drew from modern Mexican and Western iconography, including lucha masks, imperfect edges, and stencil-like graphics. I took those cues further — building an entire environment around the visual language of vintage lucha libre promotion and old locker rooms.
Instead of using the icons decoratively, I turned the idea into a place — old locker rooms and vintage lucha libre fight promotion — creating original posters inspired by the visual language of historic match bills and street advertising.
Bold typography. Dramatic characters. Spanish and English language. Saturated imagery.
I designed the wallcovering and poster compositions to feel layered and accumulated — like wheat-pasted walls over time. The brand guidelines emphasized an identity that was passionate, unabashedly real, and “perfectly imperfect.” I translated that attitude into the environment through layered poster compositions, rough edges, aging, bold typography, imperfect printing, and visual accumulation.
the solution >
30 DAYS
to develop the visual world
50
original artworks + images
1
brand persona brought into physical space
The Strategy Existed. The Visual World Didn’t
In 30 days, I translated Qdoba’s Quentessa persona into approximately 50 original artworks and a complete environmental visual language.
By the time I joined the project, I had been told that visual execution had become a sticking point. The team needed a large body of distinctive, original imagery that could express the persona across the physical environment — and the rollout was already falling behind.
I developed the artwork and imagery along with the visual direction for wallcoverings, framing, poster treatments, gallery compositions, and environmental installations.
I presented the concepts directly to the Qdoba team, including Vice President of Brand Marketing David Craven. His feedback was that the work captured the interpretation they had been searching for — translating an abstract personality into a believable visual and environmental experience.
The Quentessa already existed.
My job was to make her come to life.
— KENDALL PETERSON, Former Chief Creative Director, CIG Public Relations, LLC"An art campaign strategy for Qdoba® restaurants was to visually communicate an "art persona” for the restaurant chain. I worked with Michelle to help with the brand persona of “The Quentessa". Michelle created over fifty original works of art to be reproduced throughout their national restaurant locations. The Chief Marketing Officer and design team were thrilled that Michelle’s work captured the essence and persona of their brand quickly and intuitively. The work she did was rigorous, creative, on time and budget and the client was extremely pleased."
the reflection >
Why This Project Still Matters
This project clarified something I still believe about brands today: strategy alone is not enough.
A brand can be beautifully articulated on paper and still feel generic in the real world. The opportunity is to translate the idea into something people can actually experience — through art, atmosphere, objects, typography, texture, and the small visual cues that give a place personality.
For me, the real lesson was that creative direction is often about closing the gap between an abstract idea and a lived experience. That is still central to how I work — I look for the point where identity stops being something people are told and becomes something they can actually feel.
If you want it even tighter for the page:
— KRISTI ESTES, Principal, CIG Public Relations, LLC"I have had the pleasure of working with Michelle through my agency in Denver for many years. Michelle is one of the most brilliant, creative professionals I know. She has a unique ability to understand what a person is trying to express and deliver the perfect approach to hit the mark and meet their artistic visual goals."
butt seriously…
And Then Stephen Colbert Noticed the Bathrooms…
The project eventually found its way into an unexpected piece of pop culture.
On November 5, 2015, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert featured Qdoba’s Quentessa strategy in a comedy segment about the lengths the brand had gone to bring its fictional customer persona to life.
The bathrooms became part of the joke — including the fact that an artist had been hired to create original artwork specifically for the environments.
My name wasn’t mentioned, and it certainly wasn’t an art-world review.
But the concept had become specific, unusual, and memorable enough to make national television.