Just like when he first knew that New York City would finally have its own Major League Soccer team, Justin L was all in when he found out about a contest for fans to design a Derby t-shirt.
As it turned out, his design was the winner, beating out more than 40 other entries with 1,100 Citizens voting for the three finalists online over the course of just two days.
Justin’s t-shirt will be sold exclusively at Yankee Stadium.
“I was excited to get the shirt for myself first selfishly, but I’m more excited to see how it is on game day and I’m hoping a lot of people get the shirts and wear them in the stadium,” he said. “Being able to go as part of the prize was even better. It was great to be able to come up with something for the team and the supporters.”
The 35-year-old Manhattan resident immediately put his vision into motion.
“My intention was to immediately go for the sky blue because I wanted to sea of sky blue supporters in Yankee Stadium. I felt that would really create unity with all the supporters,” he said. “I knew right away I wanted to work with a bold kind of graphic design so it would be a quick read even from 100 yards away. The ‘Our City’ idea was a message to Red Bull fans that you could have upstate, you can have Jersey, but the five boroughs are ours.”
GET TICKETS TO SEE NYCFC AT THE NEW YORK DERBY
Justin admits he is fairly new to soccer, immediately following the English Premier League and La Liga, but that didn’t translate to MLS. That is, until NYCFC was announced.
“The second it was announced we were going to get a team in New York City, it was perfect,” Justin said. “My girlfriend and I jumped right in before we knew the roster or the logo or anything like that. We knew we’d have a team of our own to support.”
And now NYCFC supporters have a new t-shirt to wear.
