Washington Spirit Horizontal Workmark

Graphic Design, Branding, Logo Design

2020

Seemingly the simplest of jobs but one that became critically important and filled a design void for the club. The Washington Spirit logo is challenging to use in some placements because it is largely vertical/portrait oriented, and it contains small objects and fine detail that does not scale well. It is particularly difficult to place it for embroidered work or horizontal settings. I designed the horizontal wordmark in conjunction with the Sporting Operations director, the head coach, team captains, and the equipment manager. At the time it wasn't obvious to everyone why the mark was necessary. But now that we have it, it is used abundantly in our advertisements, graphics, websites, posters, retail merchandise, apparel, and the player uniforms. We have yet to exhaust its uses.

The stars and bars together suggest the American flag and our close ties with our home city of Washington, DC. The three stars tie back to the DC flag as well. We originally had three lines in the leader section, but that was too close in appearance to the Adidas logo, and would definitely be a problem with Nike being the league sponsor.

This work also cemented our use of the typeface Teko, which has great weight flexibility for our designs and a number/letter feel that fits the professional sports brand as well as the club's direct and assertive style.

It wasn't terribly complex in execution, but required a lot of organizational coordination and approval. Of all the work I've done at the club to date, this one I'm particularly proud of. It's a perfect example of design solving a problem.