Major League Soccer — headquartered in Midtown Manhattan — represents the top tier of professional men’s soccer in the United States. Sanctioned by the U.S. Soccer Federation, MLS has grown into a 29-club league (26 U.S. teams and 3 Canadian teams as of 2023) and has become a defining force in the North American sports landscape. Working within this organization during the 2017–2019 seasons was one of those rare creative experiences where my passion for sports, design, and storytelling aligned perfectly.

As a digital and print visual designer, my overarching responsibility was to ensure that every visual touchpoint across the league spoke the same language — stylistically, conceptually, and emotionally. MLS is visually massive: photography from one department, video from another, social content produced by its own internal team, marketing collateral scattered across multiple verticals, and dozens of regional and national partners all contributing assets. My goal was simple but ambitious:

Make the entire ecosystem “talk” to each other.
Make it balanced.
Make it cohesive.
Make it MLS.

I helped unify the brand through rhythm, tone, pacing, and visual consistency — ensuring that no matter where a fan experienced MLS, from the stadium to their phone to a takeover at an airport, they were stepping into one continuous brand world. That was especially important during the ramp-up to the “Our Soccer / Nuestro Fútbol” campaign, which defined the league’s identity for the 2018–2019 seasons. This campaign was bold, inclusive, fan-forward, and emotionally charged — and because it involved contributions from so many departments, the work required an obsessive attention to detail and a deep instinct for brand behavior.

Often, a single assignment meant stitching together assets with completely different origins:

• a static print ad from one team,
• b-roll footage from another,
• social graphics still in development,
• stats and messaging from yet another vertical.

It fell to me to take all of that raw material and translate it into polished, animated, market-ready digital assets that aligned with the league’s brand standards and campaign narrative. I worked closely with MLS marketing leadership to ensure everything felt intentional and elevated — whether it was a citywide takeover or a single animated social tile.

One of the unique aspects of MLS creative production is the sheer range of output. Most designers at the league relied on two or three Adobe applications per day. In my role, I operated across the entire spectrum — Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Premiere, and especially After Effects, where much of the dynamic campaign work came to life. I handled everything from LED in-stadium perimeter boards to animated screens for hosting-city takeovers, environmental graphics, stadium dressing, paid-media displays in airports, subway dominations, and large-scale experiential visual elements.

No two days were the same — and that’s what fueled me.

In sports and entertainment, the energy shifts fast, the stakes are high, and the audience is fiercely passionate. You are designing not just for a brand, but for a living, breathing community. Working with MLS sharpened my ability to work quickly, think strategically, collaborate across departments, and produce creative that could hold its own on some of the biggest stages in professional sports.

It was immersive, exhilarating, and deeply fulfilling — the kind of creative environment where every asset, no matter how small, contributes to the pulse of the game.