Below the Buckle Rodeo 
BRAND

Brand Voice & Naming
Brand Identity & System
Event Collateral
Copywriting
Concept Development

Rodeo festival highlighting the baddest broads of rodeo and the contributions cowgirls have made to Western culture through celebration and good ol’ competition. The Women’s Professional Rodeo Association, originally the Girls Rodeo Association, is the oldest women’s sports organization in American history. In 1948, 38 like-minded women banded together to form the first ever professional sports organization created by women for women in hopes of changing the trajectory of women riders within the male-dominated sport. 

We cannot understand rodeo as we know it today without recognizing the contributions of BIPOC riders. In a white-washed perspective of history, rodeo gained roots in 19th century cattle-farming within the domain of the white male ranchers. However, rodeo’s roots ran deeper, fueling culture and economic activity in Native American and black communities.

Below the Buckle’s brand identity blends the historical with the contemporary. This festival isn’t about fitting women riders into the pre-established male-dominated sphere of rodeo, but instead to recognize how they stand out. Throughout history, women have formed alliances, organizations, sisterhoods, coalitions, and solidarities to combat injustice - keenly aware that change becomes much more effective together than alone. This spirit of a collective, or a herd, is the brand’s conceptual foundation. A herd of women taking the bull by its horns. 

The branding supports this concept through a combination of explosive warm-tones with harder cool-tones, along with an eclectic range of typography reminiscent of the diversity within rodeo from the past to the present. Vintage-styled photo treatments and textures tie the old with the new.