Atlético Dallas Brand Identity Designed by Moniker and ModestWorks
January 30, 2026Focus2026SportsIdentityUSUSA myth-led identity that resists the instant-branding culture of contemporary football.
Set to launch in 2027, Atlético Dallas enters the USL Championship at a moment when new football clubs are often defined more by speed than substance. In a landscape saturated with interchangeable crests and frictionless digital marks, the project stands out for doing something increasingly rare: it begins with story, not surface.
Developed by Moniker and ModestWorks, the identity is rooted in a deliberate attempt to ground a new club in the deeper layers of place. Rather than treating Dallas as a backdrop, the studio approached the city as a cultural and mythological terrain.
Through research into the region’s pre-urban histories, narratives shaped by land, power, and survival surfaced—stories that existed long before the city was formally defined. From this research emerged the central mythology of the Wolf and the Rattlesnake. The Wolf, once native to North Texas, functions as a symbol of leadership and dominance; the Rattlesnake, quiet and precise, represents patience and restraint. Their opposition is not framed as good versus evil, but as equilibrium—two forces locked in perpetual tension. This duality becomes the conceptual backbone of the club, offering Atlético Dallas a symbolic depth rarely attempted in contemporary sports identities.
The wider visual system continues this logic. Color choices are drawn from the physical landscape such as topaz blues, deep prairie blacks, mineral silvers, while the typography combines sans and serif forms with custom blackletter numerals. The result is a system built on contrast and tension, one that feels lived-in rather than manufactured.
Atlético Dallas does not present itself as a fully formed spectacle from day one. Instead, the identity leaves space for history to accumulate. It positions the club not as a startup brand, but as a cultural entity in the process of becoming—rooted in myth, shaped by place, and designed to grow into its meaning over time.
This project exemplifies a broader shift in sports identity: away from instant recognition and toward narrative continuity, authorship, and cultural grounding.
Photography: Max Kütz, Blair Getz Mezibov
Heraldic Artist: Tom Meek
Numerals: Bobby Tannam
Website Development: Logan Sparlin