ModestWorks and Moniker’s identity for Dallas Trinity FC is a salute to the city the team calls home

When Dallas-based ModestWorks and San Francisco-based Moniker were asked to design the identity for Dallas’ first professional women’s soccer team – Dallas Trinity FC – the two studios were buzzing with ideas. The team would be part of the groundbreaking USL Super League, so crafting an identity that represented the spirit and potential of the team was no small task. From the very get-go, the studios realised that something had to be different about the story they’d tell of Dallas Trinity FC – it has to speak of more than the sport, and so, they decided to focus on the essence of Dallas and its people, its combined grit, drive and potential, and let that inspiration be the north star that guided the project. “Dallas is a city with some big sports brand personalities, so doing something different was a focus from the start,” Robert Milam, Founder & Creative Director of ModestWorks tells us. “The other teams in town kind of have their own fields of gravity – the city reflects them more than they reflect the city. We saw that as an opportunity to differentiate Trinity and build a brand that would represent something more hyperlocal and representative of the people of Dallas.” Before getting to the design, the studios had to set the story and the backdrop for the identity, and this included some deep research and taking an educated guess on what fans wanted to see from the branding. As Milam says, digging into the history of the city was eye-opening. “We consider work in the sports space to be cultural projects – they reflect the culture and build into its future. Dallas is this weird combination of irrational confidence and unexpected sophistication,” he says. “It’s a city built by brazen entrepreneurs who have taken big risks and struck it rich. It’s en vogue to denigrate the city as bland, ugly, or uncultured – but the truth is more nuanced. We believed Trinity fans would respond to a creative approach that celebrated the refinement and style of the city, giving a bit of a middle finger to the stereotype held by some out-of-towners.”