Missouri Southern State University, located in Joplin, Missouri, fields 12 intercollegiate athletic teams under the Lions name, competing in NCAA Division II as members of the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association (MIAA). The university’s visual identity centers on a lion head logo used across both athletics and the broader campus, with green and gold as the official colors.
Design and History
The lion has served as the school’s mascot since 1938, when members of the football team chose the lion before their first official game. The green and gold color scheme dates to the same era: two students, Mary Laird from Joplin and Joan Epperson from Neosho, combined their high schools’ team colors, green from Joplin High School-Parkwood and gold from Neosho High School, to create the palette Missouri Southern still uses today. [1]
The current lion head logo, a roaring lion’s head in profile, originated as the athletics mark. By 2012, university officials reported that the athletic logo had been widely accepted across campus and would become the new official lion logo for the entire university, replacing an older stylized lion on a green “U”-shaped background. At that time, the university was developing an official style guide to unify its visual identity, which also included an “MSSU” wordmark with touching letters and a circular seal featuring a globe. [2]
The university’s brand guide designates the lion logo as a primary mark for all areas of the university, with horizontal and oval variations reserved for athletics. An “MS” logo is used primarily for baseball and softball. The guide specifies that the lion logo must be reproduced from high-resolution digital artwork, may not be reconstructed or altered, and when used by itself typically faces to the left. [3]
Meaning and Symbolism
The university’s documented color history ties green and gold directly to the Joplin and Neosho high schools that fed into the original junior college, rather than to abstract symbolism. [1] The lion mascot itself was selected by football team members in 1938, though no documented symbolic rationale from that decision has been published. [1]
In 2012, the university unveiled a new mascot costume described as a “happier, more family-friendly lion,” made by Street Characters Inc. That same year, students and community members voted to name the mascot Roary, replacing earlier informal names such as Leroy, Larry, and Leo. [4] [5]
Typography and Design
The university’s brand guide permits the lion logo to appear in full color using green, black, gold, and white, with the teeth and eye of the lion rendered in white. The full-color lion logo must be outlined with a white stroke regardless of background color, and one-color versions in green, black, gold, or white are also permitted. [3]
Brand color data compiled from the university’s official assets lists the primary green as approximately #1D6335 and the gold as approximately #F7CE3C, with a secondary lighter gold tone at #F6D796. [6] No designer or agency attribution for the current lion logo has been publicly documented.
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