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Art Licensing FAQ

We are thrilled that you're interested in Melisa's design work & we're looking forward to learning about how we might partner with you and/or help you realize your design vision.

Inquiries can be sent directly to: info@aquetzalli.art or you may use the contact form below.

Kindly take a moment to read through some of our most frequently asked questions below.

People ask us these questions

Where can I find licensable Aquetzalli designs on the site?

For a "look book" we ask that you contact us directly. We feature only a small selection of our catalog online.

In the meantime, take a look at some of the example products we ourselves sell. All of these designs, unless we've licensed them on an exclusive basis to another customer or brand, are licensable - as are the originals/prints by Melisa Mijares.

Do you create all of your designs?

All of our paintings and watercolor designs start as the hand-painted or hand-inked creations of Melisa Mijares, founder of Aquetzalli.

While we leverage various generative AI models along with industry standard design software such as Illustrator to achieve desired designs, all designs begin, as stated above, as the hand-inked or hand-painted creations of Melisa.

Do note: Aquetzalli does not, however, design/manufacture many of the physical products on which the designs are printed (i.e. T-shirts, suitcases, clocks). We largely use these products to showcase a sampling of our designs and patterns - and to get you inspired about how our designs could work with your product, brand, or design experience vision or project.

Aquetzalli works with various product manufacturers and printers to deliver Melisa's original designs onto the buyable products you see on this site.

What licensing models do you use?

We use various licensing models. All of our licensing agreements are contractual; and we are open to a healthy and equitable negotiation with the right partners.

That being said, we use both standard industry licensing models for our work and modified licensing models depending on the opportunity for us and our partners.

This depends largely on what your goals are with the designs.

For example, a licensing agreement for a client contracting us to create new thematic designs for the lobby of their boutique hotel may look different than a contract for a similar client with a chain of hotels who wants to license an existing design for all their hotels.

We adapt our licensing agreements based on what makes sense for the scope of the client's need. Any additional delivery services beyond licensing such as ideation, creation, implementation, execution and/or manufacturing will in most cases be separate service contracts as part of our engagement; the same would be true if part of our engagement with you requires services that one of our service partners delivers rather than us: there would be a separate services contract.

How do you decide if you will license your designs?

A central part of our mission is to make design and design experiences accessible to brands of any ambition, we also have a set of core values anchor us.

Beyond that, there are multiple factors inform the details of our licensing and partnership agreements. Here are a few guiding principles that we use to help us decide:

  • Alignment around company missions & brand.
  • Scale of the partnership. Scale can mean a lot of things; here we mean the size and type of impact the partnership or licensing agreement will have on us as a company, you as a partner, and/or any additional environmental considerations.
  • Transparency. About your business, about you, your team, your goals, growth plans, etc.
  • Fairness. We ask ourselves: does this partnership or licensing agreement drive positive sum outcomes for all involved? If not, we don't generally engage.

We start every licensing and partnership conversation with these talking points.

Starting the conversation

What do you want to know about us (our brand, company, campaign)?

Tell us about you! In a very few sentences tell us about what your goals are and what your needs are. For most serious inquiries, we'll set up an initial 30 minute call to level set and then we'll recommend either a further scoping, or provide you with some options around licensing and partnering.

For bigger projects, or larger licensing agreements, we ask that you provide as much information as you feel comfortable up front in your inquiry so that our first follow up call can be spent digging in.

And if you're feeling chatty....

Unless you are a major multinational brand, there is a good chance we haven't heard of you -- and you haven't heard of us until now.

We'd love to know what your brand or product is about. We like to know about the people that make up the company, even if it's just a party of one. So, tell us what your team is about.

Be you. We don't care as much about the size and reach of your company as much as we care about connecting with the people behind, and the mission that drives it - especially if it aligns with our own.

What's the best way to reach you?

Email us directly at info@aquetzalli.art and in the subject line put "Partnerships" or "Art Licensing" or you can use the form below. Kindly include the following information to get the conversation started:

And tell us in the body:

  • A little bit about what you're looking for; who you are, etc
  • A phone number to contact you at for a follow up qualifying call
  • Anything else you feel is relevant.

See the first "What do you want to know about us" answer above for more guidance.

We are excited to hear from you all.

Licensing & Design Partnership Inquiries

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