ISSUE 014: The designer shaping American soccer's visual identity

A special 'Ask Me Anything' session next week

Author

Kyle from Pathway ⚽️
February 07, 2024

IN THIS ISSUE

  • 📣 Introduction: An announcement

  • 👨‍🎓 Soccer Thought Leaders: A soccer identity specialist

  • 👥 Pathway Mentorship: A new Ask Me Anything opportunity

  • ⚽️ Soccer Jobs: New + interesting jobs

  • ⭐️ Featured Job: Account Manager at For Soccer

  • 🫵 Do This Now: Read a book!

INTRODUCTION

Hello, Pathwayers! 👋

We’ve got a conversation for you today that’s a little bit different - but one we think you’ll find useful, regardless of your specific area of interest or focus. Our guest today has been quietly shaping the visual landscape of American soccer for the better part of a decade.

Before we get to him, we’ve got a couple of housekeeping items to share:

  • Earn Rewards: We’ve launched the Pathway Newsletter Referral Program. Details are below but it’s pretty simple - invite others to subscribe to Pathway and earn rewards.

  • Book a 1-on-1 Mentorship: We love working with industry professionals at any point in their career journey. Sign-up to get personalized, 1-on-1 career advice from one of our founders right here. 

Have a great week, all!

-Kyle Sheldon, Co-Founder & CEO

NEW: PATHWAY REFERRAL PROGRAM

We’re excited to announce the launch of the Pathway Newsletter Referral Program. If you have a friend, family member, or colleague that is interested in launching or building a career in soccer, you can use your unique referral link below to invite them to subscribe - as folks sign up via your link, you’ll be eligible for Pathway rewards, including:

  • Six (6) verified referrals = One (1) downloadable guide from Pathway 📘

  • Ten (10) verified referrals = 30 minute 1-on-1 Mentorship Session 👥

Before you share, be sure to first login at Pathwayhq.com.

SOCCER THOUGHT LEADERS: SOCCER IDENTITY SPECIALIST MATT WOLFF

If you don’t already know the name, you should because he’s literally shaping the visual identities of soccer clubs in the U.S. at every level.

He’s the man behind some of the most beautiful marks in American soccer - LAFC, Oakland Roots, San Diego Wave, One Knoxville, Gotham FC, Union Omaha, NYCFC - and so many others.

Say hello to Matt Wolff. 👋

While overseeing marketing at the Chicago Fire, I had the good fortune to collaborate with Matt on the club’s rebrand in 2021. And I can attest that he’s one of the nicest, most thoughtful, and most creative individuals I’ve ever had the chance to work with.

Watching him up close was impressive.

His commitment not only to his craft (the actual pixel-pushing design work) but to his process - deep research on the city and club, listening to fans and supporters, collaborating with club stakeholders, hand-drawn sketches, and iteration after iteration - was unlike anything I had seen.

It’s no wonder he hasn’t had a miss over the last ~10 years of designing soccer crests. He combines his other-worldly talent with a commitment to doing the hard work - and the results speak for themselves.

Even if you’re not an aspiring designer or art director, our conversation with Matt is chock full of useful advice for anyone who wants to reach their full potential. We hope you find it useful.

-Kyle Sheldon, Co-Founder & CEO

PS: Matt also designed the Pathway visual identity - including our little buddy ‘Patty’ the friendly soccer ball at the bottom of every email. 😊

Questions and answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity (and any emphasis below is ours).

PATHWAY: Matt, can you share your soccer origin story and then outline at what point you knew you wanted to combine your love of soccer with your love of design?

MATT: For the first part of my childhood I grew up in Minneapolis and I became a lover of soccer through playing, but also going to Minnesota Thunder games. And then when I was 10, my family moved to North London. My love of soccer was taken to new heights before I returned back to Minnesota for my last three years of high school - and realized that soccer in America was still in its infancy compared to soccer in Europe. And over the years, I realized I wanted to do something about that. I played soccer in college and towards the end of my college experience it became clear that my ability to impact American soccer was not going to be on the pitch, but I still wanted to help it grow and I realized that I could try to do it in the design studio. So, it was during college that I realized I could try to combine those two loves - soccer and design - and try to pursue them as a career.

PATHWAY: What did you start to do to try and secure that first job combining soccer and design? How did you think about that early on?

MATT: I don't think I was worried as much about finding that first job as I was worried about honing my craft and becoming a more skilled designer to then get that job. But because it really is a craft you just need to put in thousands and thousands of hours of work. I knew that was really the first step and then figuring out the employment piece would come once I had that under my belt.

PATHWAY: You eventually got that job at NYCFC and then later a role at Nike before you decided to go freelance full time - what went into that decision and how did you know it was the right time to make that jump?

MATT: I often discourage folks from jumping straight from school to going freelance. I think there's skills and lessons that you pick up in the corporate work setting that are essential to being a freelancer because when you're a freelancer, you're running your own business, you're really a small business owner, and to see how big businesses run is really vital to understand how you're going to run your small business. 

But not only that, just seeing how the working world operates, the sort of codes of conduct and the principles and the way it all works is really, really important. I always encourage folks to try to get jobs at agencies or teams before jumping into freelance.

So, all that is to say Nike and NYCFC were great places to work. The workplaces and colleagues were all very inspiring. At Nike, I was focused more on kit design, but I really wanted to do more holistic brand identity design, not just focusing on apparel and footwear. Kits are temporary, they change every year, but crests and visual brand identities last forever and challenging myself to do more of those was an important factor in deciding to go full-time freelance.

PATHWAY: What was the breakthrough project that gave you the confidence to go all-in on freelance work? 

MATT: The breakthrough project was for sure the LAFC crest and even though it was more than 10 years ago folks still today reach out and say, ‘I found your portfolio by searching LAFC crest design.’ So, that was definitely a breakthrough moment, but I think it wasn't until I got a couple of lower division crests under my belts and got those reps that I really felt confident. 

It was around the time I was doing Union Omaha, Oakland Roots, FC Tulsa - those were all around the same time that I realized that I could make a living doing a couple of them a year. I also became aware that USL and all of the other lower division teams and, frankly, MLS - all of them having aggressive expansion strategies leading up to the 2026 World Cup. I remember being on the phone with the president of USL, it must've been around 2019 or 2020 and he said they were trying to add something like 50 teams in six years and I realized that if I can grab a couple of those projects each year, I could make ends meet and freelance can work out for me.

PATHWAY: Is there anything else you would add that’s important for designers to consider who are interested in going full-time freelance?

MATT: In my experience, the in-house life is a very steady one. It's like a train steadily moving along the tracks. Freelance life is a roller coaster. The highs are high, the lows are lows. The workload can fluctuate very dramatically day over day, week over week, month over month. Freelance life is incredibly inspiring, but you really have to have a strong stomach.

I also share with folks thinking about freelance that I spend at least half of my time not designing but rather doing other business related tasks like bookkeeping, contract review, communication, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Like I said earlier, when you're a freelancer, you are running a small business and being a designer is just one of the roles that you play when you run that small business.

The point I'm really trying to make is it's wild out there in the world and there's no safety net. It's just you. You're responsible for everything and it can be very lonely and it can be scary and it can be confusing and intimidating when you're going through the valleys of the roller coaster, but it can also be incredibly fulfilling in ways that maybe being in an in-house team doesn't afford.

PATHWAY: How would you describe the differences in process between working within a team - like at NYCFC or Nike - and working outside a team as a freelancer?

MATT: I really like working in a team. I really like playing team sports. It's kind of the same principle. You get to know different people, you get to understand their viewpoints and experiences. You get to learn from them, and of course, creatively you might have to make some compromises, but those compromises I think are usually worth it when you're on a good team, when you're learning from others, and collaborating - one plus one can often equal three when you're collaborating, whereas working alone comes with a lot more pressure. It can be lonely, of course, and it's very solitary, but the freedom can be empowering and one of my favorite parts about working alone is I can eat and sleep and design whenever I want, and if I know I have it to present designs in six weeks, I can allot those six weeks however I need to or want to in order to do the best job. Some of my best time to design is between midnight and 3:30 in the morning. When you're working or even collaborating with others, you might not be afforded that freedom.

PATHWAY: With all of the crests you’ve designed over the last several years, how do ensure you're keeping things fresh and that you're creating some distance between crests?

MATT: Football crests are a reflection of its club and its community, and no two clubs and communities are the same, so they really shouldn't have the same output. That being said, it's all subjective, isn't it? I mean, they're all football crests at the end of the day, so it's a little bit in the eye of the beholder, but if you're doing the proper research and you're taking the proper care to create an identity that's going to stand the test of time and reflect the club and the community, then you shouldn't really be too worried about it looking like a team 3,000 miles away.

PATHWAY: Something that can perhaps be overlooked in the design process is the use of color - what is your perspective on the importance of color and of color combination in design?

MATT: Color is such a powerful tool, especially in football crest design because it's going to influence not only what the players they're wearing, but what the entire stadium is going to be wearing. For me, the color scheme is as important as the mark itself. And color is an opportunity to be unique.

There are colors that are strongly associated with different regions or countries or states or cities. Colors make us feel something. We have very strong emotional relationships to colors and color schemes, so when I'm designing a club's identity, getting that color scheme right is the first thing I do. Oftentimes I'll pitch the color scheme to the club for approval before I have any visuals to show. 

PATHWAY: For an early-career designer, how do you even start to get good at using color and finding the right color combinations? 

MATT: It's like being an athlete or being a musician. There's no shortcut to putting in the hours. You can definitely pick up tips along the way, but don't expect to be good right away. I embraced the time that I wasn't good and I prioritized experience and just the number of hours I had to put in. You really have to love this shit or else you have to really love the pain. You kind of have to be a sicko to do this, but I suppose you could say that about any pursuit. If you want to do it, you might as well do it full throttle. You have to be okay with that level of commitment to do something meaningful and something that ultimately brings value.

PATHWAY: How do you handle the pressure and the responsibility of designing something so important to a community?

MATT: People really care what their football club's crest looks like, way more than they might care about what their health insurance company's logo. So the fact that I know that people are going to care so much makes me want to put in the thousands of hours to give them something that they can be proud of. They care so deeply about their club and they deserve something that reflects that love.

My favorite thing about designing soccer crests is they can bring joy and a sense of pride and a sense of identity to so many folks that I'll never meet, so hopefully the outcome of the work is something that has a positive impact.

Ed. note: You can connect with or follow Matt on LinkedIn, X [Twitter!], or Instagram.

Matt is also a co-founder and owner of Vermont Green Football Club (a crest Matt also designed!) - and you can bet they’ve got some of the best kit designs in the country each and every year.

MENTORSHIP OPPORTUNITY: “ASK ME ANYTHING” WITH MATT WOLFF

We’re thrilled that Matt has agreed to be our guest for a “Pathway Ask Me Anything” session next week. We will select up to eight (8) participants to join us for an exclusive 45-minute session with Matt on Zoom.

If you apply to participate, be sure to include a creative question in your application - we will select what we believe to be the top questions and those individuals will receive an invitation to join us for what is sure to be an enjoyable conversation.

SOCCER JOBS: THE MOST INTERESTING NEW JOBS IN SOCCER

As always, we love sharing a few of the new jobs in soccer that stood out to us each week. Good luck and go get ‘em!

Want more? Sign up for our weekly “Pathway Jobs Newsletter” where we aggregate and share 100+ soccer jobs all in one place - and drop it into your inbox every Friday. Hooray!

FEATURED JOB: ACCOUNT MANAGER - FOR SOCCER

One of the leading soccer marketing agencies in North America, For Soccer is hiring an Account Manger who will “provide day-to-day stewardship of client relationships along with end-to-end project management.”

The role is full-time and remote. If it grabs your attention, you can read more and apply here.

[If you want to have your job featured in a future issue, you can book it now]

DO THIS NOW: READ A BOOK!

During our conversation, we asked Matt Wolff for his top three book recommendations for aspiring designers and he was kind enough to oblige with the list below.

MATT WOLFF’S TOP 3 BOOKS FOR ASPIRING DESIGNERS

Our advice? Pick one, order it, and study it cover to cover.

Even if you aren’t an aspiring designer, anyone who loves the global nature of soccer will love digging into the history showcased in The Beautiful Badge. The book is chock full of incredible archival images, hand-stitched badges form the 1800s, and dozens of fascinating stories about the origins of clubs around the world.

WHEN YOU’RE READY, HERE ARE A FEW WAYS WE CAN HELP:

  1. If this email was forwarded to you, you can sign up here to ensure you get every issue (sent on Wednesdays!) directly in your inbox.

  2. You can subscribe to our Pathway Jobs Newsletter, which hits inboxes every Friday and lists as many new soccer jobs in North America as we can find (usually 80+ per issue!).

  3. And, if you’re a club or brand looking to hire the most ambitious talent in soccer, drop us a line and we can tell you about our process, our growing talent pool, and the services we offer.

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Have you made your Valentine’s Day plans for that special someone in your life? Perhaps tickets to your local soccer team’s home opener would be appropriate?

We think so. ❤️

See you next week!