By Katherine O. Rizzo (first published in the April 2022 Equiery)

Thirteen artists answered the Maryland Horse Council’s call for a new logo design this past January submitting a total of 39 logos. MHC’s Communications subcommittee narrowed the field down to two logos which best represented the MHC and the Maryland horse industry while fulfilling the contests requirements.

From those final two, the MHC Executive Committee overwhelmingly voted for Patricia Moore’s design featuring a stable of horses within the Maryland state flag. Interestingly, this design was the last in a series of ideas Moore had for the logo contest!

Trish Moore

The Artist
Now living in Catonsville, Patricia “Trish” Moore grew up in the Parkville area of Baltimore County and knew from an early age she wanted to be an artist. “My mom still has this school assignment from when I was seven years old and was asked ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ and I wrote ‘commercial artist and art teacher,’” Moore explained.

Childhood dreams did come true for Moore who not only is a professional graphic designer for the University of Maryland Extension office, but she is also a part-time teacher at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore. “I graduated from MICA years ago and still teach there, as well as to children in other area school programs,” she said.

Although she herself has never ridden a horse, Moore was introduced to the horse industry through her job with UMD and her involvement with the State’s 4-H program. “I love the whole 4-H program and how much it teaches children about animal care… it’s not just about showing,” she said. Both Moore’s children participated in 4-H though their focus was on dairy goats, not horses.

“Through 4-H I’ve seen how horses are such a huge part of Maryland,” she said. “Horses boost the industry and economy by creating jobs and careers for some people and there is this incredible culture of the horse community, especially for youth, which I find important.”

For those reasons, Moore decided to enter MHC’s logo contest when a coworker sent her the email announcement. “I really wanted to enter because of the message of both the Maryland Horse Council and The Equiery,” she said. “This logo is my visual gift to the industry.”

The Logo
Moore explained her artistic process as starting with a bunch of ideas that she gets down on paper fairly quickly. “Then I just let them sit in my head for a bit and think more on what message and what sort of person the logo needs to represent,” Moore explained, adding that her stream of ideas was vast and she had a hard time narrowing them down to just three to enter in the contest.

“The whole contest was a challenging exercise with the requirements,” she said. “The new image had to be unique but still incorporate Maryland while also keeping the actual horses more generic.” Moore did a lot of research on other industry designs and read up on MHC and what its core mission is.

“That’s when I really honed in on the legislative side of things and knowing this image would be used on letterhead and material for elected officials, I knew it had to be both striking and subtle.”

During her research and creative process, Moore noticed that the checker pattern in the Maryland flag resembled stall doors and decided to design a logo with standing horses instead of just horse heads. “I think it really worked!” she said.

Moore also took the time to submit mock up examples of what the logo would look like on web pages, logoware and as social media icons. All of that extra effort helped the selection committee see the bigger vision that Moore was presenting with the logo being versatile in its uses.

“It is really exciting to win something like this because I like being able to give back to our community and I believe images like this can really communicate the positive impact of the [Maryland] Horse Council and what they are all about,” Moore concluded.

ADDITIONAL QUOTE
“Moore’s elegant design conveys our core mission: representing all segments of the Maryland horse industry without favoring any one discipline or breed. She incorporated beautifully the colors of the Maryland flag with an emphasis on the gold – a nod to the Maryland state flower the Black-Eyed Susan, a flower that has particular significance to the horse industry–and she evokes, deftly I might add, a stable of horses silhouetted in the columns of the Maryland State House in Annapolis, the epicenter of Maryland’s legislative process.” – Kim Egan, MHC Co-President