Meadowlarks were my men’s league soccer team from 2014-2024. As the league peaked in competitive level and then became increasingly toxic and less sportsmanlike, this identity became an answer to the question: what if we all had a little more fun?

Adult sports team names generally fall into three categories:

1. Standard aggressive (Hustlers, Crushers, Rebels)

2. Pro-style (Celtic FC, Linoma FC, Inter FC)

3. “Funny” (Grass Stains, Average Joes, McLovin)

We broke the mold and took our name from Nebraska’s majestic state bird, the Western Meadowlark. Not because “Meadowlarks are nimble, tough, and fiercely defend their territory,” or anything like that. We just liked how the name sounded.

I hand-drew our logo, avoiding small details that would be lost when screen-printed onto a shirt. (Have you ever taken a close look at bird feet? Very weird.)

When you see the real bird, you might expect a color palette of black and gold. And, yeah, that would probably look sweet. But on a practical level, we were continually frustrated by clashing jerseys with other teams. Roughly 75% of the league had dark shirts, so black was right out. To solve that issue, we adopted pink as the team color to avoid clashing with other teams ever again. A retina-searingly bright yellow accent comes from the bird’s tummy. Because this isn’t a real identity, I didn’t have to pay any attention to how our color palette would look in print, or accessibility, or anything like that. This identity is designed to look sweet on a webpage, specifically this webpage.

I developed a few graphic devices and photo styles in the collage you see below. It’s all a little zany and rooted in the concept that our team’s been together for 10 years and we have a hell of a lot of fun together. We got some pink jerseys printed and the Larks were in business.

In 2023, our local pro soccer team, Union Omaha, hosted a “Community Night” where the players did pregame warmups in local youth clubs’ jerseys. There weren’t enough local youth clubs to participate, so the team’s GM — one of our teammates — pulled his Larks shirt from the trunk of his car. And that’s how my Larks identity made it onto a pro field for 15 minutes. @Nike I’m available!