Wednesday is Juneteenth National Independence Day, and in recognition of the holiday, the team sported Unity-themed travel tops during their travels to Cincinnati. The club’s team, front office, and foundation collaborated to craft the unique design depicted on the back of the shirt, bridging Juneteenth and the Philadelphia Union’s commitment to promoting diversity and inclusion within the organization.
Senior graphic designer Randy Cunningham spearheaded the project, spending time with both first team players and Chester Charter Scholars Academy students from Philadelphia Union Foundation’s IAm Project to ideate the design.
For Cunningham, the process began with conducting research surrounding the first Juneteenth celebration in 1866, which marked the one-year anniversary of Army General Gordan Granger arriving in Galveston, Texas to announce the freedom of the last enslaved people in the United States.
“I just came across these images of the newly freed people with horse carriages and I believe cars later on, and a lot of it was covered in flowers. I learned that was a huge part of the festivals that we had, so I thought that the flowers would be a cool motif for us to use, especially because we haven't done anything that's floral before,” Cunningham said.
“I brought that idea to the group with the IAm students, and honed it down from there. Then, we decided ‘Unity Wins’ as the slogan.”
After a fruitful meeting that resulted in the decision to make ‘Unity Wins’ the slogan as suggested by one of the students, Cunningham built out the design, drawing on their discussions, plus themes, symbols, and dates that honor Juneteenth.
“I just kind of ran with it in terms of – how could I bring this design into our brand while having an equal celebration of Juneteenth. That’s how the U manifested – obviously, for the Union. Then I have 1865 to infinity on there, which I added to say that, slavery is over and nod to the holiday. Then at the bottom of the tee, 1865 again with the star of the Juneteenth flag,” Cunningham said.
He intentionally selected each flower depicted wrapping around the U, using each to represent a different part of Juneteenth history and the club.
“The bluebonnets are Texas's State Flower, and that’s where the first Juneteeth comes into play. I also wanted to include that because I wanted it to have red, white and blue, but also the colors of the Pan African flag, which is green, black and red,” Cunnningham said.
“ The red and white roses were initially some of the flowers I saw in my research of the celebrations, and the buttercups honestly, that's just like a flower like I've seen around here. The last one is Mount Laurel, which is the Pennsylvania State Flower.”
With the design finalized, Cunningham then met with Philadelphia Union players Damion Lowe, Nate Harriel, and Markus Anderson, bonding over their shared passions for streetwear fashion to mock up the tee.
“They helped me with how to make it like a cool shirt. We were talking about proportions – like, should this be on the breast pocket, across the middle or how big should the graphic be on the back. Everybody wanted it to be large, which is great, because you can see all the details. They were huge and just kind of like composing the shirt after we kind of had like the graphic.”
Philadelphia Union will be hosting an auction featuring the signed tops of each member of the club's Starting XI against FC Cincinnati. Bids will start later this week with the proceeds benefiting Philadelphia Union Foundation's iAM Project.
