¿Tiene Leche?

If you lived in Tulare County, California, where there are more cows than people and approximately 50% of the population is Hispanic or Latino, you might know that the headline that accompanies this post is Spanish for “Got Milk?” Perhaps you might also think that “Vacas”—Spanish for “Cows”—would make an excellent name for your local baseball club.

That’s what the Visalia Oaks were thinking when they were looking to take their brand identity in an entirely new direction and wanted a team name that tied in to the local dairy industry, yet was also unique to professional sports. In fact, that idea gained enough traction within the ownership group that Studio Simon went so far as to actually flesh out a primary logo for this direction.

We felt that we hit the bullseye with this one, and indeed, for awhile there, it looked like the Visalia Vacas would join another Studio Simon client, the Golden Baseball League’s Long Beach Armada, as one of the few United States sports teams with a Spanish sobriquet. But alas, the team ultimately decided to put the Vacas name out to pasture and went with Visalia Rawhide instead.

We didn’t have a cow about the change, however, and our work was not for naught. The handsome Holstein in the Vacas logo was used as the inspiration for the team’s new mascot, Tipper, and, with a few modifications, some of the artwork made its way into the youth mark we developed as part of the Rawhide identity system.