MILWAUKEE — The person behind the now viral Milwaukee Strong logo design has heavy ties to brewing in Wisconsin.
Lindsay Leinenkugel works as a graphic designer. She has walked the halls of many buildings on the Molson Coors campus. For four years, she gave guided tours of the brewery to over 100 people at a time. Brewing is in her blood.
So when she heard about Wednesday's tragedy, she combined her love and lineage to come up with this very important design.
"My sister contacted me and wanted to make something for her and her coworkers to share around and show their support," Leinenkugel said. "I never had the intention of it getting this big or anything like that but I'm happy it did."
The logo has taken over social media profiles. A simple but effective design, bringing together several quintessentially Milwaukee elements.
"The People's Flag of Milwaukee has a lot of meaning," Leinenkugel said of the color scheme on the logo. "It really unites the city in a way. Obviously, we wanted to keep Miller center focus of it. The bottle cap was just sort of a no brainer.
Milwaukee Strong made a lot of sense too because it had a lot of meaning."
Strength is something Lindsay says all Molson Coors employees embody. She's basically lived in the Miller Valley since before she could walk, visiting her dad. She has best friends who also led guided tours and even more friends who still
work in the brewery. This wasn't another mass shooting to her. This was personal.
"I love this company with my whole heart," Leinenkugel said. "I just wanted everybody to be ok. It's so hard to hear that people are going to be so affected by this for so long. There was so much sadness, so much unknown. It's unbelievable."
Milwaukee Brewers All-Star Christian Yelich tweeted the logo out. It's something that can show those impacted by the shooting how many people support them.
"I think it gives people this understanding, we're all on the same team and we're in it together," Leinenkugel said. "Hopefully, it can turn into something more that can actually support the families of the victims too."
Leinenkugel says she's working with some companies on getting the logo off of the internet and onto hats, shirts, anything she can. All of this as a fundraiser for the families that mean so much to her.
"I want to do it and hopefully give 100 percent of the profits to the victims' families," Leinenkugel said.
