Brand Identity for Major League Baseball
MLB keeps its iconic batter while five custom typefaces reshape the surrounding system.
Mother Design evolved Major League Baseball’s parent-brand architecture and visual system around the idea of modernizing nostalgia. The work preserves Jerry Dior’s silhouetted batter logo while updating the MLB wordmark and introducing five custom typefaces developed with specialist designers. Color palettes, graphics drawn from baseball’s physical forms and a brand-architecture matrix give different parts of MLB room to be more functional or expressive. Over a two-and-a-half-year partnership, Mother supported internal teams with rollout across sub-brands, events and initiatives.
Set in MLB Franklin, MLB Clarendon, MLB Script, MLB Block, MLB Flare
Insights
- The silhouetted batter logo designed by Jerry Dior in 1968 remains unchanged; the MLB wordmark and surrounding design system were updated.
- The custom suite comprises MLB Franklin by Nick Sherman, MLB Clarendon by David Jonathan Ross, MLB Script by OH no Type Co., MLB Block by Skye Dillon and MLB Flare by Tipotype.
- Core, Extended and Expressive color approaches were mapped to the architecture model. Historical MLB marks informed blues, reds and creams, while club colors supplied additional vibrant hues.
- Graphic tools come from recognizable baseball forms: the logo’s rounded rectangle, home plate, baselines, scoreboard lines, the ball and the field seen from above.
